


The nights disappear like bruises but nothing is healed.

by fredricogonzalez



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 52,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1734389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredricogonzalez/pseuds/fredricogonzalez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate can't really believe that they've been away from the Twister for over twenty-four hours. That somehow she survived it all, and now she's here, sitting in the passenger seat of an expensive sports car as a common criminal drives them down the highway, lines of an inky tattoo peaking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt. Something like a laugh escapes her, turning into a full-out hysteric of giggles. Seth looks over at her like she's crazy, eyebrows rising into his hairline as he slams on the breaks of the car, bringing them to a violent halt in the middle of the highway.</p><p>"What the hell, Kate?" he asks.</p><p>"I shouldn't be alive," she says. "And neither should you."</p><p>"Yeah, well," Seth says, takes a deep breath and switches the car back into gear, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. "Life's funny that way."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A good profession.

 

They leave the bar behind  them in the rear-view mirror and Kate quickly comes to learn that Seth likes to talk. A lot.

She had that inclination before, but they've been driving for over two hours now, and even though he's about ready to fall asleep at the wheel, Seth won't stop asking her questions, answers them for himself when Kate takes too long to say anything.

"So how'd you get out of there?" he asks after a while, has the decency to look guilty because his tone implied that he hadn't expected her to survive.

"Ranger Gonzalez helped me," Kate says, notices a flashing  _vacancy_  sign a couple hundred yards down the road.

She doesn't say anything about what happened to her family-- she  _can't_ , not yet.

Seth starts to slow the car down and looks over at her out of the corner of his eye, like he knows there's more to the story that she isn't telling him. "Guess that ranger was good for one thing, then," he finally says as they pull into the small lot of a dusty looking motel, neon on the generic sign ready to expire.

Kate's grateful that he doesn't push her; she won't push him either, even though she's dying to know what happened to Richie and that Santanico lady. Instead she simply gets out of the car after Seth shuts it off, realizes how tired she really is when her knees suddenly threaten to buckle beneath here.

"Easy, princess," Seth says, catching her around the waist and keeping her upright after he's made it over to the passenger side. "Come on, let's get some sleep."

"How do we afford it?" Kate asks, because while Seth didn't say anything about Richie, he had complained for a straight fifteen minutes about how all of his money had been stolen. Kate wanted to comment about how it was technically just stolen back, but figured it was better she keep her mouth shut.

Seth flashes up the hand not gripping at her waist-- inside of it is a wad of cash. "Found it in the console," Seth grins. "We can even swing a meal first, if you want?"

Kate shakes her head, disentangles herself from his grip and bites her lip when she notices the way Seth flinches at that, like if he lets her go she's going to vanish and he'll be left alone. She knows he only let her come with him because he's used to having a partner, having  _Richie_  at his side.

For a moment she wonders how long it'll take Seth to realize that she's  _not_  Richie, and send her home. Shakes it off and starts walking to the front office, blast of stale, damp air blowing against her blood-soaked face as she opens the door. Seth goes up to the counter and argues with the manager who can't speak English very well.

When he comes back over to her, he's frowning. "The only room they have is a single."

"That's fine," Kate says, because right now she doesn't even care if she has to sleep on the floor-- she just wants to black out for a while and forget.

**  
  
**

She doesn't forget.

She wakes up violently from a nightmare just as the sun sets, her daddy's eyes turning yellow right before she shoved a stake into his heart forever burned into her memory. Seth snores a little next to her on the bed and then jerks awake himself, presses his body into hers softly.

"It's okay, sweetheart," he says, voice thick with sleep. "You're here. I've got you."

She sleeps through the rest of the night with his arms around her.

**  
  
**

When she wakes up again in the morning, Seth isn't there.

For a moment she thinks that maybe he's left her, a certain kind of hollowness in her chest. It's then she sees a crumpled piece of paper on his pillow. She picks it up and laughs when she realizes it's a page out of a Bible, one of those cheap kinds motels always shove in the nightstand drawers for accommodation. What she guesses to be Seth's sloppy handwriting is scribbled over a few times in pen.  _Went for food, be back soon._  She tucks the note into the pocket of her jeans and goes to take a shower.

The hot water washes over her skin and she watches it flush down the drain, brown with dried blood at first, until eventually it turns clear. When she comes out in just a towel, hair dripping onto the old carpet, Seth's back and has a bag of take-out waiting for her on the bed, next to a plastic sack with a little white sundress stuffed inside.

"It's all they had, sorry," he says as Kate picks up the dress and rubs the worn fabric between her fingers; his eyes are steadily not looking at her.

"It's fine," she says, takes it back into the bathroom and changes.

She looks up at herself in the mirror after and doesn't recognize the girl staring back at her; she cries for fifteen minutes straight until Seth knocks softly on the door and says her food is getting cold.

 

They don't have enough money to stay in the motel for another night if they want to afford gas money and keep the car.

They check out at eleven and Kate can't really believe that they've been away from the Twister for over twenty-four hours. That her mom killed herself and her dad questioned his faith, packed them up in some stupid RV, that her family was kidnapped by con-men and dragged to a sacrificial temple hidden as a strip bar in the middle of Mexico. and her brother was turned into a monster, and Kate killed her dad and somehow  _survived_  it all herself, and now she's here, sitting in the passenger seat of an expensive sports car as a common criminal drives them down the highway talking and talking about old heists he pulled with his absentee brother, lines of an inky tattoo peaking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt.

Something like a laugh escapes her, turning into a full-out hysteric of giggles. Seth looks over at her like she's crazy, eyebrows rising into his hairline as he slams on the breaks of the car, bringing them to a violent halt in the middle of the highway.

"What the hell, Kate?" he asks.

She clutches her middle where it hurts from laughing so much and shakes her head. "I shouldn't be alive," she says through her snickering. "And neither should  _you_."

"Yeah, well," Seth says, takes a deep breath and switches the car back into gear, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. "Life's funny that way."

 

They spend the next two days taking turns driving, going deeper and deeper into Mexico until they don't really know where they are anymore, only stopping twice to use the small reserve of cash they have left for gas and food. Seth finally pulls them over at a bar a little past one in the morning on the second night, says he needs a drink.

Kate realizes that was a lie the moment he starts playing pool and making bets. She sits at the bar and sips on a bottle of cold Coke, watching the many patrons around her drink and dance and argue. It's when Seth wins his game that the arguing turns to fighting, the biker Seth's beat punching him right in the face.

Seth retaliates by throwing himself at the man who's three times his size, and when the biker's two buddies intrude and start kicking the crap out of Seth, Kate's just tired and numb enough she doesn't think anything about it when she goes over and demands them to stop, hands on her hips.

"Oh yeah?" asks the biker that Seth won the game from in a thick Spanish accent, his nose crooked and bloody from the few hits Seth got in on him. "And what are you going to do about it,  _chica_?"

Kate falters, tries to think of something to threaten him with but can't come up with anything. It looks like the guy's getting ready to laugh at her when there's the cock of a shotgun behind the bar, all heads swiveling to look at the bartender who's aiming two barrels at the biker's chest.

"Do what the little lady says, or I'll kill you," the bartender growls, closes one eye and puts his finger on the trigger. "Doesn't make much difference to me if I have to clean up blood or beer off the floor, anyways."

The two guys holding Seth drop him on the floor, move over to their friend and try to reason with him to leave. After a moment, the biker agrees, turns and spits on Seth where he's trying to pick himself up off the ground before following after his friends out to the parking lot. There's a rev of a engines and the gang speeds off into the night. Kate drops to the floor next to Seth once they're out of hearing range, reaching out a hand to him.

She hadn't realized the entire bar had gone silent when the fight broke out until everything's suddenly in full swing again, no one paying them any mind as Kate helps Seth stand and grimaces at how bruised his face is, the way blood is steadily streaming out of his mouth.

"You alright,  _camarada_?" asks the bartender when he's put the shotgun away and moves up next to Seth's side, holding out a rag for Seth to wipe his mouth off with.

"Yeah, thanks," Seth says, flinches when Kate touches his side to try and assess the damage.

The bartender nods, looks at the pair for a moment longer before he says, "It's nice to see some fellow culebra hunters after such a long time."

Kate blinks, looks up at the bartender then and notices for the first time that he's kind of young, maybe in his early thirties. His dark hair is cropped short to his head, and it's obvious he's from around here by his accent and the darkness of his skin. His eyes are soft though, holding on to a tragedy Kate's now intimately familiar with.

"Excuse me?" Seth asks, eyes as wide as her own.

The bartender smiles and holds a hand out for the both of them to shake. "I'm Felipe Trevino. Nice to meet you," he says.

 

Felipe's been hunting those things from back at the Twister since he was Kate's age.

"They killed my entire family," he says, munching on a burger that he ordered from son run-down diner he took them to after closing the bar up for the night. "It's only right I repay the favor."

"Listen, pal," Seth says, untouched food going cold in front of him; his eye's black and his lip is still split, but besides that and some bruised ribs, he seems to be okay. "We ain't hunters."

"Then how do you explain those?" Felipe asks, gesturing to the healing puncture marks on Seth's neck.

Kate hadn't been able to ask about those yet, figured as long as Seth wasn't sprouting fangs and scales, they didn't matter.

Seth's eyes go tawny in the cheap lighting overhead. "Ever heard of a bitch named Santanico Pandemonium?"

Felipe stops eating, waits for a moment before whistling low in his throat. "So you're the dumb bastard who set the vampire queen free?"

 

Seth explains it all down to the last detail and Kate's left shaking in the booth next to him, words like  _I'm sorry about Richie_  and  _How could you?_  left lingering on her tongue.

"What about you, little lady?" Felipe asks after Seth's finished, looking at Kate. "Why are you with him after what he did?"

Kate shrugs. "I don't have anyone else."

 

Felipe lets them crash in the living room of his small apartment uptown, Seth giving Kate the couch and taking the floor for himself.

"They turned Scott into a vampire too," she says as Seth's rolling out a pile of blankets on the floor next to her.

He pauses, shakes his head and resumes putting together his make-shift bed. "What about Jacob?"

"I killed him," Kate answers, swallows the ache down her throat. "Scott bit him, and he didn't want to be like that."

"I'm sorry," Seth answers.

"Me too," she sighs.

 

Kate wakes up in the morning to the smell of eggs and bacon sizzling on the stove, glances over into the kitchen from where she lays on the couch and Seth's snoring beside her on the floor, one of his hands rucked up on the couch next to her head.

" _Buenos días_ ," Felipe says, turning off the stove and shoveling food out of a frying pan onto three plates. "How'd you sleep?"

"Okay," Kate says. She stretches out her limbs then leans down and to shake Seth awake; he jolts into consciousness and moves his eyes around wildly before they settle on her and his breathing slows. "Breakfast," she says, and he simply nods.

Felipe says that they can stay as long as they want while they're all eating, that he's going to be gone for the day so they just have to clean up any messes they make.

"Where are you going?" Kate asks, sipping at a glass of guava juice in small gulps.

"Have a hunt coming up," Felipe says, washing his empty plate off in the sink. "Have to talk to my partners about the game plan."

"You're an idiot for actively going after those things," Seth says, shaking his head.

"Are we just supposed to let them win?" Felipe answers, shutting off the water and turning to look at Seth with something dangerous in his gaze; Seth swallows and looks at his plate. "Didn't think so."

 

Kate and Seth end up going with Felipe to the meeting.

His hunting team is made up of five others. There's a dark-skinned woman named Talia and a light-skinned woman named Amber. There's also three men, two of them from around town named Thiago and Isaac, and another from America named Loui who looks kind of like an older version of Scott, if Kate squints hard enough. She definitely doesn't because the resemblance makes her heart hurt.

"So you're one of those Geckos we've been hearing so much about," says the Talia, thick British accent clipping her words short.

Seth sighs and moves a little closer to Kate, almost as if he's shielding her off from the others. "Yeah, guess so."

The entire team stares at them, measures up their tired, broken forms before breaking out into various smiles. "Welcome to the business, guys," says Loui, clapping Seth on the back-- Seth flinches and scowls, still healing from the fight last night. "Can't say we're happy to have you, but that's only 'cause this ain't exactly a good profession to be in."

 

They go on the hunt Felipe was talking about three days later.

There's a nest of culebras hanging around just outside of Morella who have an appetite for single mothers and their babies. They're staying in an abandoned barn, ten of the monsters in total. Kate and Seth and Felipe's team sneak in during the afternoon and Amber kicks out holes in the walls to fill the place up with patches of sunlight.

It makes it easier to fight, throwing the culebras into light and setting them on fire whenever one of the group gets the chance. Seth stays close to Kate the whole time, blocking off anything that tries to attack her. They're close to a pile of straw on the south end of the barn when suddenly two strong arms reach out and pull Kate in.

She screams, Seth calling her name as the culebra that has a hold on her tries to bite at her skin. There's a stake in her right hand but it gets knocked away during the struggle. Kate flails helplessly, striking out with her fists and her feet to keep the monster from tearing her throat out with its teeth.

"Kate!" Seth shouts, grabs her hand and starts tugging, but the culebra's stronger and is getting her deeper and deeper into the hay, farther from the light.

"Let  _go_!" Kate screams, kicks as hard as she can and lands her heel in the monster's eye. It howls as blood spurts, staining her boots and the hem of the pair of jeans Talia let her borrow since they're about the same size and hunting in a sundress isn't very tactful.

The injury is enough to loosen the culebra's grip on Kate's body, and Seth pulls her out of the straw and onto his lap, force knocking them both to the ground. The culebra follows after, exploded eye hanging out of the bloody socket as it snaps its teeth. There's a moment where Kate thinks that this is it, that she survived the Twister only to get killed less than a week later by a demon from Hell when suddenly the creature grunts, cross-bolt sticking out of its heart before it crumbles to dust.

Kate looks up and over to where Thiago is standing, crossbow raised in front of his strong form and a smile on his lips. "Better be a bit sharper next time, kid," he says.

Blinking, Kate turns to stare at Seth who's breathing hard beneath her, his body covered in blood and gristly bits of culebra guts. He meets her eye and all the breath rushes out of her lungs at the fear she sees in his gaze, the desperation. When he hugs her close to his body and murmurs something she can't catch, she doesn't know how to react to it, just hugs him back and lets him help her out of the barn which Felipe burns to the ground to make sure all the culebras inside are really dead.

Kate looks at the flames and feels the heat of it seeping into her in conjunction with the high Mexican sun, her skin burning. Seth's got an arm over her waist and is staring into the fire with a mixture of relief and loss.

"Richie killed our dad," he says after a moment, and Kate bristles, leaning closer into his side to try and comfort him. "I didn't know until after we got what Santanico wanted."

"You still don't hate him," Kate whispers, because she knows that it's true. She still doesn't hate Scott even though he's the same kind of monster as Richie now, even though he bit Dad and Kate had to kill him. 

Maybe she's more like Richie than she thought.

"No," Seth says. "No, princess, I don't."

 

The next few hunts get easier.

Felipe finds Kate a job as a waitress in that diner he took her and Seth to that first night. Seth gets a job with the contracting company Isaac and Loui work for. Eventually, after a month of steady honest living by day and dirty painful hunting by night, they have enough to get their own apartment near the complex where Amber and Talia live together on the west end of town. There's only one bedroom in the small place, one bathroom, a small living room and kitchenette. Seth and Kate are used to the closeness the space forces on them by now, having shared such a small place with Felipe for all those weeks.

They buy two twin beds from a thrift shop and move them into the bedroom, get a ratty old couch from Loui that he was thinking of just throwing out and an old television complete with VCR from Thiago's wife who doesn't want it anymore because she says their kids spend all day watching it instead of doing their chores.

Amber and Thalia and Loui's boyfriend, Thomas, help Kate pick out a new wardrobe that fairs better in the Mexican heat and is easy to wash grease stains out of after she works.

"Oo, look at this!" Amber says, flips a lock of blonde hair over her shoulder as she holds up a lacy piece of underwear off one of the shelves of the small boutique they're shopping in. "I bet Seth would love it!"

An irrational blush forms on Kate's cheeks and Talia grimaces, explaining to Amber in soft tones about how Kate and Seth aren't  _together_ , they're just hunting partners. Amber apologizes but Kate says that it's okay, even though something twists in her gut as she realizes how true Talia's words are.

Between working and hunting and spending all their free-time cramped in the same apartment as Felipe until a few days ago, Seth and Kate haven't had much time to talk anymore. It's usually just about work or tactics for how to better kill culebras. He's been steadily teaching her how to wield a knife since that first hunt and it's the only alone time they have together. But it isn't nice, or calming. Seth's always telling her to do it better, do it  _faster_  when she messes up because he refuses to watch her get herself killed over not knowing how to fight.

"Why are you so insistent?!" she all but yelled at him one afternoon, anger flaring inside of her; it was just two weeks after that first hunt and they'd been on another one since. Kate had done a good job, had taken two culebras out on her own and saved the woman they were keeping hostage as a feeding source, helping her get home safe afterwards, alive and still  _human_.

"Because I'm not going to watch you get yourself killed, Kate!" Seth shouted at her, same as always as the sun glinted off the sweat glistening on his rapidly browning skin while hers got redder and redder as the days wore on.

"Since when do you  _care_?" Kate asked, so angry she couldn't help herself. "You didn't even come look for me after you left us in the tombs!"

"That wasn't my job!" Seth screamed, his voice cracking.

Kate bared her teeth and threw the knife in her hands at the nearby bottle they were using as a target, smashing it to pieces. "So now it is?"

For a moment Seth said nothing, just looked at her and then nodded his head slowly. "Yeah, it is."

"You shouldn't have let me come with you just because you felt  _responsible_  for me," Kate answered.

"I didn't," Seth said, his entire body deflating after a moment. She wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but knew he wouldn't tell her the truth so she kept her mouth shut. Seth sighed, rubbed a hand over his face and stepped up to her, softly touching her shoulder. Much like learning that Seth was always talking just to fill the silence, Kate had come to figure out he was always  _touching_  too. She wondered if he hadn't been comforted enough as a child and that's why he always needed to do it for himself now that he was older.

"Come on," he said to her quietly, setting a new knife into her hands. "Let's do it again."

Kate shakes her head at the memory, goes to try on the pair of dark jeans Talia has picked out for her to wear to work.

"I didn't know you and the _gringo_  weren't together," Thomas says as Kate's checking to see how they fit in the mirror outside the dressing rooms, Amber and Talia off picking out a matching shirt. "The way Loui talks about you two-- that's surprising."

Kate stops fidgeting with the waistline and turns to look at Thomas with wide eyes. "What do you mean?"

"He says that you two are practically inseparable on hunts," Thomas says, giving a small shrug of his shoulders. "Inseparable outside of them too. Seth gravitates towards you every chance he gets, and you seem so comfortable with his touch. I was really shocked when Felipe told me you've only known each other for a little over a month the other night when we all had dinner at his place. I've only seen you two together that once, but it looked like you've known each other for years."

Kate bites her lip, wants to say that maybe tragedy has a way of doing that to people, but it's then Amber and Talia butt in and make her try on some sheer-colored blouse, Thomas smiling at her sadly when Kate glances back at him.

 

She wakes up from another nightmare screaming, her entire body shaking and covered in cold sweat.

Seth's there in an instant, hands on her to settle her back into place. It's been two weeks since that day she went shopping with everyone, and ever since then she's become acutely aware of the fact that Seth really does always gravitate towards her, that every time he touches her it's so familiar she barely thinks about it.

"Kate, Kate--  _Katie_ ," he says, and at the last word she looks up at him sharply, breath coming out in rapid pants and tears streaming down her face so suddenly she can't even be embarrassed enough to wipe them away. "Hey, baby girl, you're okay. You're okay." Seth hugs her to him and Kate hugs him back, settles her face into his neck and breathes in the familiar scent of him, her body instantly calming.

They stay like that for a few minutes before Seth tells her to scoot over, climbs into bed next to her and there's so little space she practically has to sleep on top of him, one leg over his hips and his arms behind her shoulders and around her waist.

After that night they push their beds together and don't move them apart again; Kate still has that note he wrote her that first day at the motel, and her white sundress.

 

 

They develop a good routine of work, hunt, sleep.

On Sundays they go to Thiago's for dinner; on Mondays everyone comes to the diner to see Kate on their lunch shift; Tuesday nights are spent at Talia and Amber's; Wednesday's at Loui and Thomas' place; Thursdays at Felipe's; Friday nights everyone comes over to Kate and Seth's apartment for dinner and compliment Kate's cooking; Saturday nights are reserved for getting drunk at the bar. They never go to Isaac's place because he lives with his handicapped grandmother and she hates the noise, doesn't want to hear hide nor hair about the hunting business because she's retired from it now.

The only time they break their routine is to go on hunts, but Kate can tell it's not often enough because Seth's starting to get jumpy. Now that they have more alone time together and she knows how to use a knife pretty well, they've had more time to talk. Seth does most of it, which is okay with Kate because she's always been a good listener. He tells her about his childhood, about his drunk of a father and growing up in the foster system with Richie. He tells her about his ex-wife, and even prison. Kate quickly comes to realize from all of these stories that Seth has never settled down before, that he's a man used to wandering.

Kate's always known schedule and a roof over her head, but sometimes even she itches for something new, something different.

It's why she suggests that she and Seth go on a solo hunt.

 

They go to Acapulco, reports of a nest slithering around and eating tourists on the beaches down there. It's near the end of killing every, single one of the thirteen monsters they find that they hear about Santanico Pandemonium for the the first time in nearly four months since they made it out of that godforsaken strip bar and had nothing but each other left.

"What'd you say?" Seth asks, holding the last culebra down against the railing of the boardwalk they're standing on, a machete held up to its neck as waves crash in the background. He was going to simply chop the monster's head off before it breathed out Santanico's name like a threat.

"She's rising. Rising with the help of  _your_  brother," the culebra says, its eyes flashing yellow in the darkness; Kate shivers and grips the baseball bat she's holding in her hands tighter. "You've set her free, and now she is going to rule us all."

"Shut up!" Seth shouts, slicing into the creature's throat. "You shut your stupid, fucking,  _goddamn_  mouth."

The culebra laughs, blood leaking out of its fanged lips before its eyes flicker over to Kate. "The world's cruel to innocent little girls," it says. "You should know that, Kate Fuller. It's turned you into a monster, just like her, just like Richie, just like  _Scott_ \--"

Kate brings the baseball bat she's holding down onto the creature's head, smashes it in and splatters blood and brain matter all over her and Seth's faces. Seth blinks and looks over at her just as she hunches over the rail and vomits; he shoves a stake into the culebra's heart and the body turns to dust.

It takes a few minutes for Kate to get everything out of her system. Seth rubs her back softly while she dry-heaves, holds her hair up so it doesn't get singed with stomach acid. When her body's finally done being sick, Kate stands up, wipes a hand over her mouth.

"It was a bad idea to come alone," Seth says, simply looking at her.

She shakes her head. "That thing was right," she says, clenches her hands into fists, bloody wood of the bat giving her splinters. "I'm a monster."

Seth sighs, reaches out to hug her. "So am I, baby girl," he murmurs into her hair. "We all are."

 

When they come home alive and relatively undamaged, Thiago's wife decides they deserve a party.

"We kind of thought you were gonna die," Isaac shrugs, sipping on a beer as they all sit in a circle at the bar, friends and family dancing around them to some 'mariachi shit'-- as Seth calls it-- playing on the jukebox. "But you were gun-ho about going it alone."

"Actually, just Kate was," Felipe says, takes a shot of tequila and doesn't even grimace. "Weren't you, little lady?"

Kate blushes. She wanted to give Seth a break, get him out on his own with just her, just one other partner like he's so very used to. She wanted to see if she and Seth were capable of it, if they were finally getting past that night at the Twister so long ago and could channel their fear into strength. Apparently, they could. She thinks about that culebra's words before she smashed its head in, the way she's come to  _enjoy_  killing these things and feels her stomach bottom-out, excuses herself to go play one of the run-down arcade games at the back of the bar and take her mind off of it.

Seth comes over just after she loses, leans against the side of a pinball machine and stares at her until Kate feels a little uncomfortable and shifts under his gaze. "I can't stop thinking about it either," he says.

"About what?" she asks.

"About how good it feels to kill them," he says. "All the world's ever done is take from us, Kate. It feels nice to take it back."

"We aren't good people, Seth," she answers.

"I've never been a good person," he says. "And with everything you've lost, I think you deserve to be bad for a while."

"But for how long is a while?" Kate asks.

He shrugs. "Until the hurting stops."

 

 


	2. A single bullet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I finally have internet again so the output for this story will probably be at least once every couple of days. Especially now that I have a plan down pat for it. Thank you for all the kudos and comments and support. 
> 
> Also, I'm terribly sorry if my Spanish is incorrect in any way. I only know the basics and had to use a translate for the rest. Don't hesitate to correct me if it's wrong!

* * *

 

 

 

Kate wakes Seth up on the morning of her eighteenth birthday by screaming at the top of her lungs from inside their apartment's small bathroom.

Seth comes barreling in wearing just his boxers with his revolver aimed high, barely registering the fact that Kate's completely naked, covering herself with just a hand-towel as she points into the tub frantically yelling, "Kill it! _Kill it_!"

Brows pulling together, Seth leans carefully over the side of the tub to see what she's so freaked about and frowns when all he finds there is a fat, hairy spider. He clicks the revolver's safety back in place and looks over at Kate, noticing for the first time that he can see everything except the very tips of her breasts and the index of her thighs where her hands and the small towel cover her up.

Kate blushes, fear no less stamped down despite her embarrassment. "Don't just st _and_ there!" she hisses. "Kill it!"

"You've ripped the insides out of _vampires_ and you're afraid of a little spider; really, Kate?" Seth asks her, rubs at the morning stubble on his jaw and yawns, having been woken up too abruptly from all her shouting.

They've been together for eight months to the day now, share the same home, the same _bed_. They eat dinner together and hunt culebras together and have even developed their own little code for when one of them's in trouble. Kate knows by now that it takes Seth an hour to fully wake up, plus two cups of coffee.

"Please just kill it Seth," Kate whines, because despite all the gore she's seen on the road so far, spiders still freak her out.

She remembers when she was just a kid and a wolf spider got into one of her shoes, how she'd slipped it on before going to school and felt something fuzzy wriggling around in there with her toes. She'd screamed so much even after Scott had smashed the insect with his coloring book that their momma had had to keep her home for the day. Kate's been traumatized ever since, would gladly take a snapping culebra over even the smallest arachnid.

Seth sighs, grabs a bottle of shampoo off the lip of the tub and smashes the spider beneath it. Kate lets out a sigh of relief and then looks down at herself, flush deepening. "Thanks," she says. "Now get out."

"Sure thing, princess," Seth says, his eyes raking over her one last time before he leaves and shuts the bathroom door behind him.

For a moment Kate doesn't move, thinking about the heat of Seth's gaze, before she fishes the dead spider corpse out with a few pieces of generic toilet paper, giving a little squeak as she throws it into the toilet and flushes it down twice, just so it won't come back.

After she's finished showering she gets dressed for work, frowning at the way her jeans hug tightly into her hips. Cooking with tons of butter and grease has made her gain a bit of weight; she's got a lot of muscle from training to kick culebra ass, sure, but that makes squeezing her jeans on all the more difficult.

Sighing, she shoves up the zipper and comes out into the main room of the apartment with her hair still drying, curling around her shoulders. It's gotten longer in the past couple months; she's thinking about finally taking Amber up on her offer to let her cut it, though Amber with a pair of scissors still doesn't sound like a good idea.

By now Seth's sitting at the small table they bought last month to put next to the kitchenette, sipping at a cup of coffee and trying to read the morning paper. The gang's been teaching them Spanish, but Seth's picked up a lot slower on it than Kate has. She guesses it's probably because he doesn't actually care to learn it.

"There was another murder in Mexico City," Seth says as Kate fishes through the fridge for some fresh fruit and cream, pausing only once at the dangerous note in his tone. "The woman's eyes were cut out."

"Do you think it was Richie?" Kate asks, grabs a fork out of the silverware drawer and sits down at the table across from him. They've finally gotten to the point in their relationship (whatever kind of relationship it is) where they can talk about the youngest Gecko brother without Seth flinching.

Seth shakes his head in answer, sets the paper down and peers at her over the salt and pepper shakers that look like candy skulls-- Kate bought them for less than the equivalent of a quarter at the thrift shop up the road. "Thiago said that guy he knows has them pinned in the States somewhere."

Thiago knows a lot of guys, but there's this one in particular whose soul mission is keeping tabs on Santanico Pandemonium. No one knows precisely what the vampire queen is up to now that she's been released from her temple, but after a run-in with a deranged culebra on a hunt four months back, Seth and Kate are pretty sure it has something to do with taking over the world. Go figure.

"So someone's making offerings to Santanico now?" Kate asks, spears a piece a strawberry with her fork and dips it in the fresh cream Thiago's wife, Renata, brought over last night before popping the bite into her mouth.

"Guess so," Seth answers, looks down at his watch and frowns. "When's your shift again?"

"Ten," Kate says.

"When do you get off?" Seth asks.

"A little after five," Kate says. It's a Saturday and she knows he wants to go to the bar where Felipe will give them free drinks just like he does every other Saturday of the week. Seth works steadily from Monday through Friday, but Kate pulls swing-shifts at the diner. He gets antsy when she leaves him alone to go to work on weekends.

"I'll pick you up," Seth says.

They still have the car they stole from the Twister, runs like a dream but they only bring it out every once in a while if they have to go on a hunt out of town. Usually Kate walks to work, and the contracting business lends Seth a company truck he can drive to and from work sites during the week.

"What's the special occasion?" Kate asks, because she knows that they don't have a hunt planned for the evening-- that's reserved for Tuesday night when the gang wants to go to Mexico City and investigate what's really going on there.

Seth smirks. "Believe it or not, you haven't been too sneaky about hiding the fact it's your birthday," he says.

The bite of melon hanging off Kate's fork drops to her plate as her mouth hangs open. "Darn it," she says. "I thought I could get out of celebrating."

**  
  
**

Seth picks her up at five just like he promised.

She's behind the counter trying to punch out when he pulls into the lot; Kate motions to him through the windows to come inside. Seth gives a little wave of acknowledgement and goes to shut off the car. Kate smiles, turns around to click in her time-card when Reggie, the diner's cook, sidles out of the back and puts his arm around her.

"Hey, Katie," he says. Reggie's a forty-one year old convict who moved to Mexico from Tampa after breaking his probation. He pretends to be nice enough, but Kate doesn't like him. Especially because he can't keep his hands to himself and doesn't seem to get the fact she doesn't ever want to go out with him. "Going home, sweet stuff?"

"Yes, Reggie," Kate sighs, shrugging off his touch. Maria, the other waitress on shift, glares daggers at Reggie but can't say anything because on top of being the cook, he's also the second-in-line manager when the real one, Tyrone, isn't in on the weekends because he's usually off watching his kids' soccer games. It's the only reason Kate hasn't decked Reggie yet-- she needs to keep her job, unfortunately. "I gotta go."

"I'm off in about twenty," Reggie says, not taking the hint. "How about me and you go grab a drink?"

Kate opens her mouth to rebuff him, clenches her fist, when suddenly Reggie's yanked back by an arm extending over the counter. The cook's eyes go wide and he looks up at Seth, who doesn't hesitate to put the man in a headlock, mouth set in a sneer.

"I believe she said she has to _go_ ," Seth mutters, tightening his grip around Reggie's neck-- the man's face is quickly turning purple.

Kate's very glad that the only customer in right now is old lady Vasquez, who's a little crazy and never pays any attention to the world around her. "Seth," Kate says. "Let him go."

"You think you're hot shit, huh?" Seth asks, not letting Reggie go. "Think you can give _my_ girl a hard time just because she's young, huh, asshole?"

"I didn't know she was taken!" Reggie gurgles, trying to claw his way out of Seth's grip.

"Still doesn't mean you should fucking harass her." Seth lets go of Reggie and the man's expression pulls into one of relief right before Seth grabs the back of his head and slams Reggie's face into the counter, knocking him out cold.

"Seth!" Kate cries, brushing her hair back from her forehead irately as she looks down at Reggie's bloody face. "I'm gonna get fired!"

"No you ain't, _carino_ ," Maria says then, stepping up from where she casually watched the whole exchange at the other end of the counter. "I'll tell Tyrone that Reggie slipped on some _grasa_ again. _Su novio_ here knocked him out good-- _el pichacorta_ probably won't remember a thing."

"See, it's all good," Seth says, and Kate can tell that he's still mad, hands itching for a fight.

She thanks Maria and hangs up her apron, crosses around the counter to put her arms around Seth's waist and leans up on her tiptoes to press her forehead to his. "I'm okay," she says, and instantly, he calms.

" _Dos inseparables tienen una buena noche_!" Maria calls out as they leave, and Kate doesn't bother to correct her, too busy holding Seth's hands to keep them from shaking.

**  
  
**

"You should've let me kill that guy," Seth says after they've been driving for a solid five minutes, considerably calmer now but still pissed. Kate can tell by the way a muscle in his jaw is twitching.

"You don't need to be wanted in Mexico as well as the United States," she answers.

Seth can't come up with an excuse to get out of that one.

"So are we going to the bar for a surprise party or something?" Kate asks after a moment, sits back in her seat and lets the setting sun warm her face.

For it being the middle of January, Mexico is still pretty warm and bright, even during dusk. Kate's used to that coming from Texas and all, but what she isn't used to is the Christmas atmosphere up here that just began to die down about a week or so ago. Her parents always treated Christmas as Jesus' birthday and nothing else; Kate and Scott didn't even get presents. They didn't spend Christmas eve around a fire singing carols either, but in a soup kitchen. Scott always hated that; Kate liked helping people, but sometimes she wished that she could just be at home watching those cheesy claymation Christmas specials and spending time with her family instead of strangers.

Here in Mexico, with the hunting gang, they really make the holiday worth something. Reneta and Thiago hosted a party at their house, Reneta holding their youngest, Salvador, as he wriggled in his Christmas dress and she babbled about Thiago nearly burning the main course as their three other kids ran wild. The Christmas tree in their house was _huge_ and took up almost the entire living room. Loui brought Thomas and Thomas brought spiced eggnog and Felipe got so drunk he proclaimed himself Papá Noel and wouldn't let anyone else touch the Christmas cookies. Isaac almost set Thiago's cat on fire trying to prove a point over something about yule. Talia kissed Kate under the mistletoe and everyone cheered. They all got each other presents, Amber flouncing about and shoving them in people's hands, smiling with glee. Kate got a bunch of new knives and a "pet" cactus one of Thiago's daughters insisted she call Pepe.

Kate had ended up having so much fun that she was practically overflowing with happiness by the end of the evening. For the first time in a while, she felt like a normal girl, having fun with her friends and family.

But the best part of the night was when she and Seth went home together, sitting on the couch and passing a leftover bottle of the eggnog between them. "Best Christmas memory?" Seth asked her as the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer claymation from the 70's played in the background.

"Probably when I was six and my grandpa was still alive," Kate said. "He taught me how to make popcorn strings and we ate so many Christmas cookies I got sick, but it was wonderful."

"Very decent," Seth nodded approvingly.

"What about you?" Kate asked, and smiled when Seth's entire expression took on this certain sort of look, like he was remembering a time when he was actually, truly happy.

"It's dumb," he said, lips curling at the sides.

"I wanna hear."

"Okay," Seth said, turning to face her. "Well, it was probably when I was twelve. Richie and I were in the care of some old woman named Margret, who was actually kind of nice where all the rest of our foster parents were assholes. Anyways, Richie was really wanting this model airplane kit, but Margret couldn't afford it. She gave me half for the pay though, and I was able to get a job delivering Christmas trees from the local tree farm to people's houses. I made enough to get Richie that set, and the way his whole face lit up when he opened it on Christmas morning... _Man_ , that was something."

"I'm glad you have those memories," Kate said, and she meant it.

Seth smiled, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "I'm glad that I have _these_ memories now, too."

Kate leaned closer and hugged him; Seth held her back tightly for a long moment, face buried in her hair. They don't hug often, barely ever, really. But when they do, it means something big. She never wants to lose the feeling of that as long as she lives, just like she never wants to lose the memory of her first Christmas in Mexico.

"Nope, no bar tonight," Seth says, jogging Kate out of her memories of old celebrations and forwards into new ones. "Somewhere else."

"Where?" Kate asks, peers over at him suspiciously.

Seth grins. "It's a surprise, princess."

**  
  
**

They end up at the edge of the bigger city their town hooks onto. Seth parks the car in front of large dance club and a valet comes to get Kate's door for her.

"How in the hell did you afford this?" Kate asks when the bouncer lets them in after Seth gives two false names; she wonders if they're going to be able to pay rent at the end of the month as Seth slips his arm around her waist casually.

"That new guy Amber's been seeing owns the place," Seth shrugs. "Thank her, not me."

Inside everything is alive even though night's just barely fallen. Bodies grind against each other, spilled alcohol making Kate's feet stick to the floor. For a moment she remembers when she first entered the Twister, the sights and sounds of it, the smell of blood covered up with tequila and sparkling body butter. Her heart races.

 _They're going to get me,_ she thinks, entire frame starting to tremble. _They're gonna kill Daddy and Scott. They're gonna tie me up and the ropes are gonna hurt and I'm gonna--_

Seth's hold tightens on her and the voices in her head fade out, the way the nightmares do when he holds her in the middle of the night. She looks up at him and sees he's as nervous as her, wonders why Amber chose this stupid place to celebrate Kate's birthday in, if she's even technically old enough to be here.

"Gecko! Birthday girl!" Kate looks up and finds Loui and Thomas dancing over to them, glowsticks strapped around the couples' wrists and necks. "How's it going?!"

"This place sucks!" Seth shouts over the loud bass of the music.

"Awe, come on!" Thomas counters.

"Yeah, live a little!" Loui backs him up.

Seth rolls his eyes and leads Kate over to the bar, orders two shots, both for himself. Kate still isn't inclined to drinking. She's usually the designated driver when everyone gets smashed at the bar on Saturday nights, probably will be for her own birthday, even.

The thought kind of sounds like a buzzkill, and considering that she didn't even want to celebrate in the first place, she tells the bartender to make Seth's order a double. For his part, Seth looks over at her and raises a brow at her change in behavior.

"It's my birthday," she shrugs, downs one of the shots handed to her and grimaces.

Loui and Thomas must have rounded up the others after finding out that Kate and Seth are here now, because it takes no time for the whole gang to come over. Reneta is even here, says she left the kids at home with a babysitter. Amber's big-shot boyfriend comes around after about an hour and treats the group to free drinks. Kate's already had three shots, and the fourth one turns her body kind of numb, hips swaying to the music. It's a popular song from the States, one she remembers hearing on the radio before her entire life got turned over on its axel.

"I'm gonna go dance!" she shouts to Seth, wants him to offer to go with her, but he doesn't. She's too tipsy to pout about it too much.

Weaving her way to the middle of the dance floor takes a lot of effort, but eventually she's able to get a spot and dance around, hips swiveling and hands in the air. She remembers dancing like this when Kyle asked her out the first time, figures it couldn't have been as momentous as she made it out to be considering she also danced like this after acing her Biology final before school got out for the summer eight months ago.

If she weren't intoxicated, Kate would probably dwell on that thought. Sometimes she's mad that she never got to finish high school, that she didn't get to break up with Kyle before she went off to college like a normal teenager. She'd be graduating in four months if she were still in Bethel.

She doesn't think about it. Instead she keeps dancing, even when a pair of hands fit themselves to her sides. For a moment she thinks it's Seth, that he changed his mind and came out here to humour her. Then she spins in the embrace and sees it's definitely not Seth. Instead it's a cute boy that looks like he's in college, a tourist down here for the weekend looking for a good time.

"I'm Tim!" he tells Kate over the blare of the music.

"Kate," she says, figures there isn't any harm in dancing with him since Seth refused to be her partner.

"You're hot!" Tim says.

Kate doesn't answer him, just keeps dancing and lets him gyrate around behind her, pulls away when his hips try to cant into her own. He does it again and she pushes him off, is about to tell him to get lost when suddenly Seth's there, stepping up in front of her. She recognizes the look on his face-- it's the same look he had when he put Reggie in a chokehold earlier.

"Seth," Kate says before he can do anything, grabs onto his arm and starts pulling him back. "Come on, let's go."

"Keep the fuck away from her," Seth growls at Tim just as Kate manages to drag him away.

"What the fuck, Seth?" Kate asks once she has him off alone in the hall leading to the bathrooms, normal light here and less sound from the music. She rarely ever curses, but when she does it's usually well-placed; Seth cusses all the time but it's mainly just to cuss.

"Don't you 'what the fuck' me," Seth says. "What is with you today?"

"What's with me? What's with _you_?" Kate counters, sobers up quickly at the way he's glaring at her.

Seth's frown scowl deepens; he opens his mouth and closes it a few times before answering. "First you wake me up to find you totally naked, and then I have to pull that creep off you at the diner when you clearly could have taken care of it yourself, and now you're flirting with some stupid fucking frat boy? Do you think just because you're eighteen now you can play games with me?"

Kate blinks up at him because she wasn't playing any games-- she's never played games with Seth. Confused, she studies the way he's hunching over and staring at the floor now, sharp bow of his lips pursed. _Oh my God,_ she thinks as she gets it. "Are you..." she stammers. "Are you _jealous_?"

"Of course I'm fucking jealous!" Seth nearly shouts, voice softening with sincerity as he lifts his eyes to her and stares her down. "You're supposed to be _my_ partner, Kate. And here you are running off getting yourself into trouble without me."

"Is that all though?" Kate asks, this certain kind of ache swelling in her gut, the same as it had that day so long ago when Talia said she and Seth weren't _together_ and Thomas said it looked exactly the opposite. "We're _just_ partners?"

Seth swallows dryly, doesn't answer her for a very long minute before he asks, "What do you mean?"

"Nothing," Kate says, pushes past him to go back to the bar. "Forget I said anything."

"Kate!" he calls after her.

She stops, hands clenching as she turns around. "Yeah, Seth?" she asks softly, looks up at him and sees something there in his eyes she can't name, like a mix of hurt and need and fear. He opens his mouth and she thinks he's going to say it, that he's going to do something big.

Kate's entire body goes on edge as a feeling a lot like hope floods her chest.

"I got you something," Seth simply says, and tosses her a small black box from out of his pocket.

"Oh," Kate says softly, disappointment taking over every part of her as she realizes this is all he's going to do.

"You gonna open it?" Seth asks.

She nods, tells herself to _focus_ , to not _feel_ ; sheshakes herself out and opens the box to find a single bullet inside. She picks it up and studies the caliber, raises a brow at Seth.

"You'll figure it out," he says.

Kate sighs, tucks the bullet back into the box and shoves it in her pocket. "Okay," she says, and really walks away this time.

"Happy birthday, princess" Seth whispers once she's gone.

**  
  
**

Seth sleeps on the couch that night.

Kate lies awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling for two hours before she finally looks over at the nightstand where the little black box sits and decides that this whole thing is stupid and gets up, going to nudge Seth over on the couch cushions.

"What're ya doin'?" Seth mumbles sleepily.

"Shut up," Kate says, fitting herself into the crook of his arms. "Go back to sleep."

He does, wakes up in the morning with a crick in his neck and blames it all on her, but he's smiling.

**  
  
**

On Tuesday night they go into Mexico City as planned.

Thiago knows a guy willing to put them up for the next three days while they explore the city and figure out what's going on. They split up into teams to do this, Amber and Loui making one, Felipe and Isaac another, Thiago and Talia a third, and Seth and Kate the last.

"Can't keep you two apart," Loui says, winking over at Kate as she straps a shotgun over her back.

She sticks her tongue out at him like she used to do to Scott, wants to simultaneously laugh and cry when Loui makes the gesture back to her.

"Ready, princess?" Seth asks, tucking his revolver into the back waistband of his jeans.

Things have been a little off since her birthday on Saturday night. She thought maybe they'd been find Sunday morning when he'd smiled at her like always, but they weren't, not really. Seth decided to sleep in the bed with her again that night, but she didn't see him nearly all day and he didn't come in until after she'd already passed out. It was the same thing on Monday. Kate didn't comment about either instance. It was like they were actively trying to avoid each other, keep in place the rules they had laid down for themselves in the last eight months.

Kate can't help but wonder offhandedly if maybe rules are meant to be broken.

"Ready," she says, follows behind him into the first abandoned building they've been assigned to check, prime real estate for a culebra nest.

There's nothing there though, not in the next building or the one after it either. On the fourth empty warehouse they find themselves in, Seth takes out the walkie-talkie he was given that connects to the others each pair has.

"We've got nothing," he says, just as Kate hears something snap in the background and her ears perk up.

" _Us either,_ " replies Talia and Loui one after the next.

" _All clear here, roger,_ " says Isaac, and just as Seth's snorting into the receiver and telling him he's an idiot, a culebra jumps out of the ceiling beams and tackles him to the ground.

Seth shouts, tries to wrestle the monster off of him as Kate slings the shotgun off of her back, raises it to fire when another culebra attacks her form behind, smashing her face down into hard concrete as they land. There's the sound of a gunshot and Kate's vision swims as the culebra rolls off of her; she looks over to see Seth still struggling with his own opponent but he's managed to get out his revolver and shoot the culebra that tackled Kate, throwing the monster off of her.

" _Move_ , Kate!" Seth shouts.

She tries to shake off the darkness behind her eyes and swivels, picks up her shotgun from where it landed a few feet away from her and fires at the culebra on top of Seth, sending it flying across the warehouse. Seth jumps up and spins around to see how many they're up against, only to find they're suddenly alone again. Kate looks over to where she just shot the other culebra too, but other than a puddle of blood, there's nothing to imply it was ever there in the first place.

"What in the...?" Seth asks, glancing over at Kate with wide eyes.

" _Were you guys just attacked too?_ " comes Thiago's voice over the walkie-talkie, breathing harsh.

" _Uh-huh, and then did they pull a Houdini?_ " answers Felipe.

" _Yeah,_ " chimes in Amber. " _What the_ hell _was that?_ "

**  
  
**

The gang recons back at the house of the guy Thiago knows. The guy's name is Martin, an ex-veteran from Vietnam who found out about culebras while exploring the caves under the battlefields there.

"Nice to know they're all over the fucking world," Seth says, holding a t-bone up to his purple-ing eye since Martin doesn't seem to know what ice-packs are.

"You have no idea, sunny-boy," Martin says, sitting back on one of the crates he uses for furniture in his living room. The house is old, falling apart on itself. It barely has anything inside of it, but Thiago says that's to hide the fact the basement is stocked high with illegal weaponry.

Seth snorts at Martin's answer, glances over at Kate where she's lounging back on the line of crates draped in throw pillows to form a make-shift couch, her head throbbing. Turns out Amber with scissors wasn't so bad-- she'd had to trim a chunk out of Kate's bangs to get to the wound she abstained from the culebra smacking her head into the concrete so that Felipe could stitch it up. That part had hurt very, very badly, but Kate had simply grit her teeth and not made a sound, Seth holding her hand the whole way.

"So why'd they just retreat like that?" Loui asks for the hundredth time, glances out of the shades hanging over Martin's front window like he's expecting the culebras to come back any minute though it's nearly dawn.

"We're no closer to knowing the answer to that from when you asked last time," Talia sighs, blows smoke from her mouth before dashing the cigarette in her hands out. She always says she's quitting, but one thing gone wrong and she's straight back to a nicotine fix to soothe the wounds. "Maybe they're just crazy."

"I don't think so," Isaac says from where he's sitting on the ground staring at the screen of his laptop; he's one of the few people from their town that pays for a wireless internet card, and Kate wishes she and Seth made enough to do the same because she really misses Youtube. "I've been on the forum, and everyone says the same thing's been happening to them lately."

"What forum?" Seth asks, brows drawing together.

"It's a world-wide net source for all vampire hunters," Isaac shrugs. "I thought you knew about it."

Seth rolls his eyes, sits down near Kate's feet and then drapes her ankles over his lap; she smiles down at him dazedly, glad that they're back to casual touch. The last two days have felt very strange without it, without Seth's constant talking and Kate's constant listening and occasional chiming in because she knows it makes him as close to happy as people like them can get.

"What do you mean it's been happening to them _too_?" Felipe asks after a moment, sits down next to Isaac and crowds into his space to look at the computer screen; Isaac rolls his eyes but doesn't shove him off, and Kate vaguely wonders when they're going to date already.

"I _mean_ ," Isaac says, drawing out the word for dramatic effect, "that they've been going to investigate culebra sightings too, only to get attacked out of nowhere, but then the things just back off."

"What the fuck?" Seth asks.

Thiago shakes his head. " _Jodidas culebras_."

There's a long moment of silence, Martin shining a hand-gun while the rest of the hunters sit and stare dazedly at one another. And then, sharp as always, Talia's eyes flash as she looks around the room, at each and every injured hunter in it. Kate can see her ticking something together in her head, dark fingers counting off imaginary scenarios before Talia narrows them down to one.

"Did they all have blood drawn?" Talia asks, teeth clenching.

"Hold on," Isaac says, types something into the keyboard rapidly then hits enter. He waits for a second before his computer starts _ding_ ing. "...Yeah, they did."

Talia nods solemnly.

Kate perks up a little at that and looks at Seth, at the bloodstain on his shirt from where the culebra that attacked him dug its claws in. There's similar injuries on the rest of the gang, each of them having bled from the attacks, but gotten away _alive_ , when usually culebras try to kill you the first chance they get.

"But why?" Kate asks.

"I don't know," Felipe mutters. "It doesn't make sense as to why they'd want hunters' blood if they're not just going to completely drain--" he gets interrupted by Martin in the middle of his sentence.

"I don't believe it," the ex-vet says, shaking his head wearily and setting his gun on a crate. "They're actually doing it."

"Doing what?" Thiago asks. "What are you talking about?"

"They're testing to find the true hunters," Martin says. "They're going to try and wipe them out so the vampire queen will be unstoppable."

Something in Kate's stomach twists.

Everyone else starts shouting about what the hell Martin means, asking what a true hunter is, how it's possible that they're the only ones that can stop Santanico, if anyone in the room is one of them. Seth gets up and starts telling Isaac to type something into his laptop, while Thalia grills Martin for information and the others speak rapidly to each other, tones of confusion all around.

Kate stands up, ignores the wave of vertigo it causes.

"Where are you going?" Amber asks, pausing in the middle of arguing with Loui.

Putting one foot in front of the other, Kate quickly walks towards the land-line in the kitchen. "I need to make a phone call," she says.

**  
  
**

He picks up after the first ring; Kate holds her breath.

" _Hello?_ " comes a tired voice from the other line, considering she's called at four in the morning.

"Freddie?" Kate asks into the receiver.

There's a long pause and then, " _...Kate?_ "

"Yeah," she breathes, half-smothered by a relieved laugh.

" _Kate, are you okay?_ " Freddie asks, and if Kate listens close enough she can hear his little girl, Billy, crying in the background. " _I haven't heard from you in_ eight months _!_ "

"I'm okay," Kate says, curls the phone-chord around her body and presses the receiver tighter to her ear so she can hear Freddie over the sounds of everyone else arguing in the other room. "But listen, Freddie, I need to tell you something. Something urgent."

" _...What's going on, Kate?_ " he asks, a tone of suspicion in his voice.

Kate tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and blows air through her teeth before she can bring herself to say it. "I think you and your family are in danger. Again."

 

 

 

 


	3. A deep breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I know I said I'd be updating every few days, but then I got this really nasty case of the flu and work has been freaking hectic. I'm gonna try and steadily update from here on out though. I hope to have the fic done by the time I have to go back to school in August at the latest. Thank you for all your comments and support though, they mean so much!
> 
> Precursor that there's a lot of myth and plot points in this chapter, so if it's confusing let me know. Also, again, sorry if my Spanish is terrible. I really need to go and learn it properly again because the language is amazing and I hate to do it injustice.

* * *

 

 

 

"Do you want me to get you anything from the market? Bread? Deodorant? Imodium, maybe?"

"Do they even have Imodium in Mexico?"

"I don't know-- probably. It's not a third world country, Seth." Kate knows Seth is rolling his eyes on the other side of the bathroom door after she says this.

"How about a stomach pump?" he asks.

Kate laughs. "Sorry, bucko. Fresh out."

There's a pause and then Seth groans; Kate takes that as her cue to move away, give him some privacy.

It's been a week since she called Freddie and told him that the culebras are after hunters-- and not just any hunters, but bred and born ones. Hunters like Ranger Gonzalez himself. Kate still remembers when they were walking together in the tombs beneath the Twister, the vision Freddie had. He explained his heritage then, how his blood is designed to kill vampires and that was why it'd been so easy for him to get trapped in the hell they'd found themselves in.

Kate had realized quickly what Martin meant by 'true hunters,' and how if the ability is genetic, then not only is Freddie in danger, but his baby girl as well.

After Kate explained to the Ranger what's going on, Freddie paused for a long moment before saying he'd meet her near the border in a week and a half when he wrapped up the homicide case he's been working on since he got off of suspension two months ago. He didn't ask why Kate is still in Mexico, and she didn't tell him about Seth. She just said she was with other hunters, and Freddie told her to be careful before giving her the address of a pandaria to meet at and hanging up.

So it's been a week and Kate's supposed to meet Freddie in another three days. _Supposed to_ being the key phrase, as Seth has gone and gotten himself food poisoning after eating bad tacos on his lunch break at work the other day. Things have gone back to normal between him and Kate since her birthday last week, despite a little underlying tension that she can't put her finger on the source of considering it could be from a lot of different things.

After calling Freddie that night at Martin's, Kate explained to the team what was going on while Martin filled in the blanks about what a true hunter actually is, how _rare_ they are and that it's kind of miraculous Kate knows one. He said that they originated when culebras did, made by the Gods of Death who do not like the Lords of the Night very much and would do anything to "fuck their shit up a little" (Martin's words, not Kate's), including get in the middle of their curses.

The true hunters don't have one actual name as their title, but Martin said the local Spanish circuit likes to call them _Asesinos de Oscuridad_ , which roughly translates to Killers of Darkness. He said that they're not only capable of killing culebras, but _Gods_ as well-- Demigoddesses like Santanico.

"It makes sense she'd want them gone, then," Loui reasoned. "Take out the minor threat before the big ones."

"You think any true hunters even know what they are though?" Amber replied, biting her lip in scrutiny.

"There's a calling in their blood," Martin said. "They all feel it soon enough."

Kate's kind of worried sick about Freddie's daughter after hearing that.

Sighing, she scoops up her purse from the kitchen table, along her and Seth's latest video tape from the rental store uptown-- _Jeremiah Johnson_ , which they had watched at Seth's insistence that it's one of Robert Redford's best pieces-- so she can return it before the due date. Seth always makes her re-watch and analyze the classics with him, wracks up late fees like nobody's business. Since he's preoccupied by a trashcan and a toilet, Kate figures she can sneak the tape out and save the change for their next rental.

"Bring back ginger ale!" Seth calls just as she opens the front door, and Kate laughs again while also feeling a little sorry for the guy. But, hey, he shouldn't have trusted buying food out of the back of someone's van, even if he was famished the way he says he was or not.

 

 

The walk to the local market is short from their apartment. Kate can make it there in fifteen minutes if she doesn't stop to talk to the neighbors. Today, though, Señora Martinez is out front watering her flowers and calls Kate over two blocks from the main street all the little shops of their town sit on.

" _Te ves hermosa hoy en día, la Sra. Kate. Que brilla intensamente, incluso... Oh! Usted y el Sr. Seth embarazada? Me encantaría ver a algunos niños en el barrio_!" the Señora says, and Kate translates the words in her head until she's blushing and laughing and shaking her head emphetically.

Señora Martinez has never seemed to understand that Kate and Seth aren't together like _that_. When Kate first met the aging woman at a neighborhood mixer Talia and Amber dragged Kate and Seth to after they moved into their apartment, Señora Martinez had insisted that Kate and Seth were married. It had taken Kate three months to explain otherwise to the woman, and even now she keeps asking Kate if she's pregnant yet. Sometimes it's annoying, but most of the time Kate just feels bad that the Señora's family never comes to visit so she hasn't gotten to see her grandchildren in years and is desperate for a replacement.

" _No, no. Soy demasiado joven para tener niños_ ," Kate insists.

" _Con aquellas caderas birthing_? _Tonterías_ ," the Señora smiles. " _Además, el Sr. Seth es un buen hombre. Sería un buen padre. Sus bebés sería hermosos_."

" _Gracias_ ," Kate says, the impact of Señora Martinez's words about Seth being a good father hitting her hard in a stark moment of realization. She shakes it off. " _Le explicaré esto_."

Kate talks to the Señora for a few minutes more about gardening and the heat they expect this spring before excusing herself, explaining that Seth is having stomach problems and she needs to get him medicine. Señora Martinez advises some sort of tea, but Kate's too busy trying to bolt from the woman as fast as possible before she says anything else about babies.

A long time ago, before her mother died, Kate always imagined herself growing up and going to college and getting a good job and getting married to a nice religious person and having lots of kids of her own. She loves children, always considered babysitting a treat instead of a job when she'd watch the neighbors' kids to make spare cash. But now, with this life she's chosen, she knows kids don't fit the equation, and she's actually more than okay with that. It's hard enough to take care of herself and Seth when he lets her-- bringing kids into the picture? No thanks.

The market is bustling when Kate finally makes it there. Vendors stand outside of shops advertising fresh produce and hand-made clothing. Kate ducks into the video store before getting side-tracked by the smell of _pastel de tres leches_ , greets the usual clerk, Roddie with a smile. He reccomends her a video he thinks Seth would like, a newer one with Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfieffer.

Kate rents the tape in hopes of it making Seth feel better after being so sick the last two days, goes to pick up some ginger ale from the grocery shop down the street.

She's in the middle of picking out some fruit from one of her favorite vending carts when a strong, warm hand clamps down on her shoulder--

\--Kate spins, grabbing for the knife she always keeps tucked on her hip, staring back at the stranger who's now got her soul attention. It's a girl, young, probably no older than fourteen. Her skin is dark, hair light. There's something in her expression, something Kate's only seen at the Twister and during hunts.

" _Fuck_ ," Kate says, the girl's lush mouth twitching up into a smile at the word. She knows that this girl has to be old, like _really_ old to be able to walk in the sun. "What do you want?" Kate asks, weary.

Culebras don't attack in public, not unless they want to cause a scene and they usually like to lay below the radar. Kate wonders why this one standing here talking to Kate in the middle of a busy market square, body so close to Kate's it's like the girl thinks they're old friends, or something. Kate's fist tightens over the hilt of her knife in suspicion, won't pull it out until she has to because the vendor's still waiting for her to pay and everyone is watching.

" _Hach k'as_ ," the girl says, her smile turning down into a frown.

"What?" Kate asks, the language sounding not even close to familiar.

" _Saal_ ," the girl says, pointing a finger towards Kate's chest. " _Saal hach k'as_."

"I don't understand you," Kate hisses, bearing her teeth. "Is this some kind of trick?"

The girl shakes her head, eyes taking on the yellow edge of a monster, but also holding so much sadness that for a moment Kate's taken aback by it, her heart hammering unsteadily in her chest.

" _Kan saal tuupik_ ," the girl says, trying to get Kate to understand but she doesn't and it's clear. The girl sighs in exasperation, motioning to Kate's person again and repeating what she just said. Suddenly she bares her fangs, and Kate's about ready to go ahead and say screw everything, stab the culebra right her in public, when the girl points to her teeth inconspicuously and says, " _Kan_."

Kate blinks, on the bridge of an answer. "...Snake?" she asks, hands shaking.

The girl nods, clapping her hands together happily before retracting her fangs. Kate glances over her shoulder at the vendor to see he's waiting expectantly for her to pay, but hasn't noticed that this girl she's talking to is less than human. Ignoring all her better judgement, Kate slaps some pesos on the stand and tells him to keep the change in Spanish, pulling the girl off into an alleyway between two stores.

When they stop, Kate pulls out her knife and aims it at the girl's heart. "You understand me," she says. The girl nods. "Okay, well, if you try to hurt me, I will kill you." Again, the girl nods. Kate takes a deep breath, wills her body to calm down. "Snake," she says after a moment, watches the girl's pretty face light up in a smile as she claps again. " _Saal_ \-- what does that mean?"

The girl brings a finger up to tap her lips in concentration, before suddenly pointing upwards to the sky.

"Sun?" Kate asks. The girl shakes her head. "...Light?"

The girl nods rapidly, pointing to Kate's chest again. " _Saal. Kan saal tuupik_." She makes a crushing motion with her hand, covering the sun into darkness.

Kate's entire body goes cold as she realizes what the girl is trying to say. Sex Machine had told her that she has a light inside of her right before he'd tied her to that alter and tried to cut her guts out. "The culebras want to kill me," she says, and suddenly it's hard to breathe.

They've tried to kill her before, of course, but on hunts it's different-- culebras are just defending their territory then, trying to survive. Kate had thought that she was safe from them wanting to sacrifice her now that they'd gotten what they wanted and Santanico is free.

Apparently she thought wrong.

The girl shakes her head then, confusing Kate even more before she says, " _Saal uk'ik_." She brings her wrist up to her mouth and fakes biting into it, making a sound like she's sucking liquid through a straw.

"They want to _drink_ me?" Kate asks, and when the girl nods Kate just kind of shudders. "Do _you_ want to do that?"

The girl shakes her head. " _Amigoo_ ," the girl says, and it sounds enough like _amigo_ that Kate gets the girl means she's a friend. Kate resists the urge to snort at the notion a culebra wants to be her friend, wanting the girl to continue. " _Kan saal uk'ik_ ," she repeats after a moment, gaze worried.

"Why do they want to drink from me?" Kate asks.

" _Aantah k'uho'ob_ ," the girl says. She holds up one finger, and Kate realizes that it's like they're playing a twisted game of cherrades, and wants to laugh.

"First word," Kate smirks.

The girl nods, holds out one of her hands and feigns fright, looking around for help.

"Help?" Kate asks.

The girl nods, holds up two fingers to say she's hinting at the second word. Kate wonders how the girl can understand her if she doesn't speak English, quickly dashes the thought as the girl makes another motion of two with her fingers again.

"Two?" Kate asks.

The girl makes a so-so gesture, then holds her arms in a bundle and coos down like she's holding an imaginary baby.

"Two babies?" Kate asks, squinting.

The girl nods. " _Hunahpu. Xbalanque_ ," she says, and Kate knows those names, her breath hitching.

Seth told her what Santanico said. Felipe explained it even more. The Maya Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque, tricksters of the Gods, founders of the Maya nation. Holy shit, Kate thinks as all of the things the girl has been saying suddenly start to string together, like one of the hundreds of connect-the-dots puzzles Kate and Scott used to work on together as kids.

"The culebras want to turn me because I help the Maya Twins," she says. "I help Seth."

The girl smiles sadly, nodding one last time, all of her excitement gone. " _Hach k'as_ ," she says-- _danger_.

"Is it Santanico?" Kate asks, feeling knots form in the pit of her stomach, because where there is Santanico, there is Richie. Kate doesn't know which one of the two she's more frightened of.

The girl shakes her head. " _Narcisso_."

"Oh my God," Kate says, slumping back into the wall behind her as her knees give out. Her eyes fall to the ground, threat of tears because she knows that name, too. She knows that he and Carlos are the ones that took Scott away from her.

"How do I stop this?" she asks after a moment, looks up for the girl to answer her only to see nothing but thin air like last Tuesday night in Mexico City after those culebras attacked her and Seth. "Wait!" Kate calls out, panic setting in because she doesn't have near as many answers as she needs.

She wants to ask why Narcisso wants to turn her besides that she's working with Seth, what good that will do. She wants to ask if Santanico or Richie know about this, if they sent the girl to warn her. She wants to ask if this has anything to do with the other culebras trying to find the true hunters. She wants to ask if the girl knows if Scott's okay.

Instead Kate tucks away her knife and leaves the alley, hikes her shopping bag farther up on her shoulder, glancing over it every ten feet until she gets home.

 

 

"This is some heavy shit, man," Thomas says from where he's surfing the web on Isaac's laptop. "That culebra was speaking _Maya_ \-- she had to have been as old as Santanico. Especially if she could walk in the sun." **  
**

Kate frowns, chewing on the edge of her cuticle as Seth stiffens next to her. When Kate told him what happened at the market after she got home, it was like he'd never been sick in the first place. Instantly sobered up and called the others. Talia and Amber and Thiago are on a small hunt out of town, but Felipe, Isaac and Loui came running, the latter bringing Thomas with because he's better with a languages than anyone they know, considering that's what he's majoring in in college.

"I can't believe she just fucking approached you like a FedEx carrier," Felipe says, rummaging around in the fridge for a beer. "Do you think Santanico sent her to warn you about this Narcisso guy?"

"She left before I could ask," Kate says. "But why would Santanico want to help _me_?"

"Richie would," Seth says, and she can tell it hurts him to admit that, admit that somewhere deep down his brother still has human feelings despite being a monster. "I don't know how you worked your magic on him so quick, sweetheart, but the moment he met you he wanted to protect you in his own weird little way."

Kate glances over at Seth out of the corner of her eye, sees him scowling down at the can of ginger ale in his hands. "It seemed like it was more than that, though," Kate says. "If either Santanico or Richie wanted to warn us, wouldn't they have just shown up in person?"

"I don't know," Seth says. "I have no idea _what_ Richie's thinking these days."

"Wouldn't they just let Kate get turned though?" Isaac asks from where he's lounging on a mountain of pillows at the end of the couch. "If they're worried about her getting turned for helping you, that makes no sense. Kate being one of them would just sway you to their cause more, Seth."

"He'd never help them," Kate says automatically, but when she feels Seth shift next to her she realizes she's lying and doesn't understand why. "I wouldn't either," she says, turning to look him in the eye. "Even if I was one of them, I wouldn't help them."

"I know, princess," Seth says, but he looks so tired when he says it, like he doesn't completely believe the words.

"You know, I've heard of this Narcisso guy," Felipe says as he uncaps his beer and comes to sit next to Kate on the couch. "Real fucking bastard, him and his associates. Glad most of 'em are dead. Wish he was dead too, if he's going after the little lady here. You don't mess with family."

"Carlos isn't dead either," Seth says, sneering out the man's name. "He's the one that turned Kate's brother."

Everyone's silent then, because they all know the story by now. How Scott got turned and bit Jacob, how Kate had to put a stake through her own father's heart but couldn't bring herself to do the same with her brother. Her father had wanted to die, to not be a monster. But Scott... Scott just didn't want to be weak anymore, and now Kate understands that all too well.

"Jesus," Loui says eventually, settling himself into Thomas' side and sighing. "This is all kinds of fucked up."

"When isn't anything fucked up with us?" Kate asks; she and Seth are the only ones who don't laugh in answer.

 

 

That night in bed, when everyone's gone home and it's just them, Seth holds her so tight Kate thinks he's going to break her, but doesn't seem to care.

"I won't let them hurt you," he murmurs into her hair, lips ghosting against her scalp. "I promise, Kate."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," she says, eyes beginning to water. "We both knew what we were getting into on that first hunt, Seth."

"Did we?" he asks. "Or were we both just scared and hurting and wanted to feel something different?"

"I don't know," Kate answers him honestly, rolls in his embrace so she can see his eyes in the small sliver of moonlight shining through their bedroom window. "I never thought my life would be like this."

"Never thought you'd be living with a bad man?" Seth asks, something bitter in his tone. "I fucked it all up for you, Kate. You were gonna go to college, be a nurse or something and _help_ people. Probably marry that Kyle kid and have some pretty little babies and be  _safe_."

Kate thinks about Señora Martinez's words from earlier in the day, the way Kate herself thought of everything Seth's saying now. And she realizes in a sharp pang of guilt and hurt and need that she doesn't want that-- not just because she can't bring kids into this world she now lives in, but because she doesn't want that white picket fence fantasy in general. This life she's built with Seth, it isn't a good one exactly, but it's  _hers_. She _is_ helping people and she  _is_ safe with Seth at her side.

She asked Richie that night at the Twister what it feels like to truly belong, and he said that she could find it there with him, but he was wrong. She's found it  _here_ , with his brother, with  _Seth_.

"I don't want that life," she whispers to him softly. "I want _you_."

She doesn't stop herself from kissing him.

One moment they're just laying there looking at each other, and the next her mouth is on his hungry and wanting. He responds automatically, groaning against her lips as she digs her fingers into his bare chest, trying to take everything she can. He pulls away after just a couple of seconds though, shaking his head and keeping her at arm's length, always pushing her away. 

"Kate, we  _can't_ ," he says.

"Why not?" she asks, rejection and embarrassment making her cheeks flare, the tears from earlier running down her cheeks in fat drops. "Do you...do you not  _want_ me?"

Seth blinks, this expression on his face like he can't believe what she's just said. Suddenly he's rolling her beneath him, hips flush against hers and  _oh_ \-- oh  _wow--_  he's _hard_ against her, erection pressing warm and thick into the crease of her thigh. It shocks her past her chagrin, how very adult the feeling is, how much knowing she's done that to him makes her feel more grown-up and powerful than killing culebras ever has. And she _wants_ , but she's also afraid of that. Sometimes it feels like that's all she does anymore is want. Wants more time, wants more blood, wants more  _love_.

"You think I don't want you?" Seth whispers breathlessly then, bringing her back into reality. "Kate, I want you  _every fucking second_ of the goddamn day. I'm like this every morning when I wake up, every time I catch a flash of your skin or hear you laugh without holding back. _Fuck_ , every time I jerk off I think about you no matter how much I try not to, and I've never come so hard in my life." Kate blushes again, staring up at him with wide eyes and her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She thinks about the stare he gave her when she made him kill that spider on her eighteenth birthday, how she was naked and his gaze _burned_ wherever he looked at her. "It's not that I don't want you that's the problem," Seth says, his concerns much like her own. "It's that I  _do_."

"Why?" Kate asks, her head swimming with heat and astonishment. "All this time, you've never--"

"Because I know you're hurting," Seth says, rolls off of her and onto his back. Kate stays in place, eyes fluttering rapidly and all the blood in her body rushing south, making her surge with untouched need. "And I'm not going to try and fuck the sad out of you. It won't work."

"But you do want to...want to  _fuck_ me?" Kate asks shakily, because even though he's just showed her evidence of it, she's not entirely sure. All these months of saying they're not together, and now,  _now_ she doesn't know what they are.

"Sweetheart," Seth says, bracing his body into her side and taking her jaw in hand so he can turn her head and make her look at him. "I don't just want to fuck you. I want to make you feel so alive and so  _loved_ that you won't know what to do with it."

"When?" Kate asks, anticipation swelling in her gut. 

Seth sighs and holds her close again, kissing her mouth softly but that's as far as it goes. "When the hurting stops," he says, and Kate falls asleep thinking of the feel of his lips on hers and culebra blood running down her fingertips.

 

 

They meet Freddie at the pandaria he gave Kate directions to two days later, just a few miles short of the border.

It's just Kate and Seth that have come, because she knows that springing the news on Freddie that she teamed up with a Gecko will be explosive enough without the rest of their hunting gang getting involved.

(She and Seth haven't talked about the other night, and Kate has since realized she's okay with waiting. Knowing he feels the thing they have between them like she does is enough for now.)

She's right about Freddie blowing up about her choice of partnet of course, because the moment they enter the pandaria and Freddie sees Seth walking in behind Kate, he starts cursing so loud that all the other patrons in the place look up in alarm.

" _Seriously_ , Kate?" Freddie asks, waving his arms dramatically. "Of a _ll_ the p _e_ o _ple_ you could have teamed up with, you chose _him_?"

"At least I didn't just fucking leave her there to die in the desert," Seth snaps, and at that, Freddie simmers down, taking his seat with a scowl.

"She was safe," he says as Kate and Seth sit down across from him, the rest of the patrons turning away wearily now that no one's yelling.

Seth snorts. "Safe? _Safe_? How is she _ever_ going to be safe when she's this fucking shining beacon of light everyone wants to sacrifice? How is she ever going to be safe now that she knows what's really out there?"

Freddie shifts uncomfortably, looking strangely guilty. After a moment of terse silence he clears his throat, looks up at Kate and smiles sadly. "At least you picked someone who's going to fight for you tooth and nail."

"You're fuckin' right I will," Seth says, pressing his body into Kate's protectively. "I know I left her to go get Richie back at the Twister all that time ago, but I ain't gonna fucking do that again. I _won't_."

Kate blinks over at him, shocked to hear the words. Despite what happened the other night, it's hard to shake the feeling she'd had that this time she's thought that eventually Seth will realize she's not his brother and go. That if Richie by chance ever does come back, then Seth will drop her like she never meant anything to him at all if it means having his brother back.

Looking at him now though, she wonders how she ever could of thought that. Seth loves his brother more than anything, but Richie left. Kate's not going to leave, and Seth knows that. He once said that loving Richie was like a ticking time-bomb, that he was just waiting for the moment his brother found something better.

"With you, Kate," Seth said after, bracing his hands on either side of her face as he looked at her so intense it made her insides twist. "I know you're not looking for something better. You're the first person to do that with me. Even Vanessa was always waiting for me to fuck up. You aren't."

And he was right, is _still_ right. No matter what Seth does, Kate will probably always be able to forgive him for it. She had a connection with Richie right off the bat, but the connection she has with Seth started slow and has grown and grown over the months until he's the only thing she has left that she really, truly cares about. Her family is gone in one form or another, but Seth, he's here, and apparently he doesn't plan on going anywhere.

 _"I want to make you feel so alive and so_ loved  _that you won't know what to do with it."_

She remembers that page out of the Bible from the motel they stayed at that first day, still has it crumpled up with her white sundress and the bullet Seth gave her for her birthday somewhere in their closet-- Seth's sloppy handwriting of _be back soon_ as fresh as when he wrote it.

"Fair enough," Freddie says. "But I'm not here to grill you about your relationship. What you and Kate do, that's your business. I'm here for _my_ family, not to judge you about yours."

"I'm sorry, Freddie," Kate says, reading the nervousness in him like he's a flip-book. "I wouldn't have called you if I didn't think I had to."

"It's okay," Freddie says. "I knew I wasn't finished with it, not really. Carlos was right when he said it's in my blood. I can still feel it sometimes. And I don't want that to happen to Billy."

A string in Kate's heart pulls at the way Freddie talks about his daughter, like he'd do anything in the world to protect her. Kate remembers being on the tail-end of that feeling once, the way her dad risked everything to save her and Scott. Even in the end, when she thought he was giving up, he was still trying to save her. Keep her from a life of watching everyone she loved turn into a monster. At least he gave her the peace of knowing he's in heaven with Momma instead of running around out there doing God knows what like Scott is.

"You're not the only one they're after," Seth says-- Kate tries to stop him from continuing, not wanting to bring their own drama into the mix, but he shrugs her off. "Looks like our old buddies Carlos and Narcisso want to turn Kate. We don't know why, but it has something to do with this Maya Twins shit Santanico is so obsessed with."

"How do you know this?" Freddie asks, his eyes turning sharp. "Is that what you meant about everyone trying to sacrifice her? That's still happening?"

"In a way," Kate says, figuring now that the topic's been brought up, she has to explain. "I was at the market a couple days ago and this-- this  _girl_ , a _culebra_ , who could walk in the sun came up to me and said that Narcisso wants to turn me because I'm helping Seth. We thought maybe Santanico sent the message, but we're not for sure why she would do that and not just let me get turned, give Seth more of a push towards helping her and Richie with whatever they're doing."

"What _are_ they doing?" Freddie asks.

A waiter hesitantly approaches their table then and the conversation falls silent Kate and Freddie order coffee, Seth sticking to water because his stomach's still a little messed up from the food poisoning and Kate refuses to let him drink caffeine and wreck his bowl movements anymore than they've already been screwed up.

After the waiter's gone, Seth turns back to Freddie and measures the man up, like he's trying to decide if he wants to say what he's going to. Eventually he does. "Our friend Thiago says this guy he knows has kept tabs on them, and they've been roaming around the States for a while turning people and breaking into weird places," Seth shrugs. "The shit with the culebras started a bit after we let Santanico loose, apparently-- they're attacking random hunters around the world and trying to see which ones are like you, Ranger. Apparently you're the only ones that can kill a God, and now that she's free, you're the only ones that can kill Santanico too."

"So they're going to exterminate us," Freddie says without needing to be told.

Kate cringes, nodding her head slowly. "We think so."

"They'd kill Billy, too," Freddie says, his entire body going on high alert. "I heard about the sacrifices going on down here, the ones like Tanner and Richie made--" Seth shudders at the harsh reminder of the bank teller Richie killed and Kate takes his hand beneath the table, leveling him out-- "Are they for Santanico?"

"We don't know," Kate answers honestly. "Those kinds of killings can be done in offering to her or the Nine, so says one of our teammates, Talia. She's really good at research, so I believe her in that."

"This team of yours," Freddie says, face serious. "Can they be trusted?"

"They took us in when we had nowhere to go," Kate says. "They taught us how to hunt, how to _survive_. We can trust them."

"Okay," Freddie says, waits a moment as the waiter sets their drinks down then leans a little over the table, Seth and Kate meeting them in the middle. "Then you're going to have to trust me, too."

"Why?" Seth asks, suspicious. "Sure you aren't gonna shoot me like you shot my brother?"

"No," Freddie says. "But I am going to get you a link to Narcisso."

" _What_?" Kate asks, eyes wide. " _How_?"

"This pandaria?" he whispers, nodding to the room around them. "It ain't just a bread shop. It's a shrine."

"What do you mean?" Seth asks.

"I came here before the Twister," Freddie says. "Carlos tied me up in back and tortured me after I walked in on an alter set up for Santanico."

"Are you sure it's still back there?" Kate asks. "Are you sure that it can lead us to them?"

"Only one way to find out," Freddie says, looks over at Seth and smirks. "You're good at breaking and entering, Gecko. Let's say we try tonight."

Seth sticks his hand across the table, and after a moment Freddie shakes it. "You're on," Seth says.

And _oh man_ \-- Kate knows this is going to be one wild night.

 

 

 

 


	4. A special coupon.

 

"You ready for this, Gecko?"

Seth hefts the crowbar farther up in his hands, and Kate watches as he spins it around with a flip like a professional. "Are you kidding?" Seth smirks. "This place doesn't even have an alarm system. Easy pickings."

Kate looks over at the panderia, the way it has just a gate on the front window and a deadbolt on the door. She wonders if maybe there really is a shrine back there, with how little trouble the owners went to in keeping people out. She and Seth have had more difficulty getting into culebra nests before, the monsters having linked themselves up with modern times and calling ADT to buy the latest systems when they make a homestead in an old building or abandoned warehouse every once in a while. Isaac really hates it when they do that-- disabling alarms takes  _forever_ and the group's always afraid he isn't going to be able to do it before they get caught trying to break in, end up with their bones used as toothpicks for the culebras to scrape leftover guts out of their teeth.

"Then have at it, McManus," Freddie says, waving his arm out to the side sarcastically.

Seth rolls his eyes. "I prefer Mulvaney," he says, steps up to the front door and wedges the crowbar between the metal hinge that connects the deadbolt to the frame, pops it open with a single flick of his wrist.

Kate moves up beside him and pulls the lock picking kit out of her back pocket-- Amber taught her how to do this a few months ago, and Kate's gotten pretty good since. It's all in the fingers, Amber said, and Kate's always been good in her hands, whether it be making intricate friendship bracelets for the other girls on her swim team or illegally breaking into Spanish bakeries they may or may not serve as the worship grounds of a vampire cult. She wedges the pick into the front door's lock and listens for the sure tale _click_ of the lock seizing out of place before twisting the handle and pushing the door open wide.

"Oh great," Freddie says, snorting out a laugh. "You're taking after a criminal."

"She's a regular Bonnie to my Clyde," Seth says, slinging his arm around Kate's shoulders as they walk inside; her cheeks flare with heat as Freddie eyes the way Seth's hand cups Kate's upper arm intimately, doesn't want to know how harshly the Ranger's probably judging her for being so comfortable in Seth's grip. If Freddie ever finds out about the way Kate kissed Seth and Seth kissed her back two days ago, Kate's pretty sure that Freddie would shoot Seth in the balls for it; she vows never to let him in on the fact there's more between her and Seth than simple companionship.

The front room is the same as it was this morning when their little group came in-- order counter and display case, sparse tables and generic chairs. Kate can smell the leftovers of _bolillo_ and _sopapillas_ from the day, her mouth watering and stomach cramping with hunger. She was too busy trying to talk Seth into going along with Freddie's plan all afternoon instead of running off back home to get something to eat, curses her luck for shacking up with the most stubborn man this side of the planet. Sometimes Seth can be a real pain in the ass if he doesn't want to do something, especially when he doesn't want to do something with the Texas Ranger who shot his brother the way Richie shot Freddie's mentor, Earl, almost a year ago.

The trio makes their way towards the back quietly, Freddie taking the front and aiming his gun high. Kate clutches a stake at her side, and Seth keeps hold of the crowbar. He's also got a hatchet tucked into the belt loop of his pants, as well as his revolver in the waistband. Kate's got five knives on her in various places, but those are only used when needed, barely and afterthought because usually the stake does a good enough job.

There's a curtain covering a door past the restrooms, and Kate can see the way Freddie's hands shake as he begins to pull it aside. Before they left this morning, Kate asked him all about Billy and Margaret. Freddie said he was able to get the former baptized, the latter overly happy to have her husband be home for it. They're thinking of having another kid-- if it's a boy they're going to name it Earl.

It's knowing things like thus that make Kate desperate to keep Freddie alive through this whole thing, the reason she insists on taking over as front woman despite Seth and Freddie's protests.

The curtain covers a short hall that opens up into a larger room. Kate blinks as cold air hits her face, fishes a small flashlight out of her pocket and flicks it on. Through the beam it casts she can see old relics, rotten fruit and golden coins strewn about. There's a statue of a goddess on a pedestal, the features vaguely familiar. If Kate sniffs enough, she can smell past the scent of spoiled mangoes to the dried blood underneath of it.

"Fuck," Freddie says. "I actually really didn't want to be right."

"You think Carlito still comes here after what Santanico did to him?" Seth asks, has a flashlight of his own that he's steadily shining on the west wall where an ancient carving of two Mayan men are raising their arms up towards the sun.

"Even if he doesn't, the owner used to work for him. As far as I could see, he wasn't here today, but if they kept the shrine, this place must still be involved in some kind of business with Santanico's cult," Freddie says. "Maybe they know how to get in touch with Carlos."

It was hammered out between Freddie, Seth and Kate earlier in the day that finding Carlos first is their best bet. Primarily it's because between him and Santanico, he's the less theatrical choice. Secondarily because they all want to know why he and Narcisso are trying to turn Kate. They want to see if there's something bigger going on here than Santanico trying to get her freedom, why Kate needs to be turned for helping Seth out. Because, surely, turning her isn't going to solve anything, right?

If Santanico wanted Seth's help bad enough, she'd just hold Richie over his head, Kate knows that much. If Narcisso and Carlos want Kate as a culebra, there must be a method behind the madness. Not nine months ago, Carlos was willing to have Kate _killed_ as a stand-in for Santanico, so why does he want her alive for eternity now? That certainly wouldn't appease the Nine anymore, so there has to be a bigger reason for it.

And if they can attack Carlos while he's not looking, they may be able to make it out un-bitten and get their answer.

"So what do we do now then?" Seth asks, wipes a finger over one of the alters and pulls it away dusty; he grimaces. "Wait it out until they open up shop and casually ask the owner to call Carlos for us, ask him why he and Narcisso want Kate all fanged out?"

"You got any better ideas?" Freddie asks.

For his part, Seth can't think of anything, so they all go back into the front room because staying in the shrine creeps them out; they sit at one of the tables after Freddie fires up the coffee maker behind the counter and brings them three steaming mugs of caffeine, taking his black while Seth practically fills his mug with milk and Kate assaults hers with sugar. They all sip in silence, simply looking at one another.

Kate wonders how awkward this must be for Freddie and Seth-- they basically killed each other's loved ones back at the Twister, and now they're here sitting and drinking coffee like old friends. She wonders if she's a bad person for making them sweat this out together, but it's not like they have any other choice. Freddie's involved in this war whether he wants to be or not, same as Kate and Seth. That night at the Twister sealed their fate no matter how much they deny it did. While they may have all left  _alive_ , they're not the same as the way they were before they went into that place. Kate thinks that's because tragedy never lets a person be the same. Once you've learned to survive, you're damaged, dangerous and hungry for some kind of closure that you're never going to get until everything that's ever hurt you is dead.

"Do you think Scott's still with Carlos?" she asks after a while just to break the silence, swirls the remnants of her coffee in its mug, watching fat grains of sugar stick to the bottom where they haven't mixed in all the way.

"If he is, we'll get him back," Freddie says like it may as well be the easiest thing in the world instead of a suicide mission.

Seth snorts. "And do what with him? He's a fucking _snake_ , Gonzalez. He ain't gonna want nothing to do with us."

"I don't even know if he's forgiven me for just leaving him there," Kate says guiltily. "Or for killing our dad."

Freddie reaches across the table and takes Kate's hand. "You had to, Kate. I think Scott knows that."

"Probably blames himself for biting Jacob in the first place," Seth says.

"You're _not_ helping," Freddie says when Kate bristles at Seth's comment.

"I'm just telling how it is!" Seth says indignantly.

He and Kate don't talk about their brothers with each other much, at least, not about what they've become. There was once, a few months into staying together, that Kate cried to Seth about her guilt in not asking Scott to leave with her. But at the time she'd just been so _mad_ at him, blamed Scott as much as she blamed herself for their father's death. And she knows that Scott's stubborn, that he'll have to see the horrors of the world for himself before he ever reconsiders being a culebra. She knows he just wants to be stronger, doesn't want to let the bullies win. But working with men like Carlos and Nacrisso-- surely Scott has realized by now that they _are_ the bullies and doesn't want to help them anymore.

At least, Kate hopes he doesn't.

 

 

After a while of sitting and more awkward silence, even the coffee can't keep Kate awake and she starts to doze a bit, leaning into Seth's side and drooling on his shoulder. He rubs soft patterns into the small of her back that she thinks may be circles, or maybe spirals as Freddie keeps watch and taps his foot anxiously, hoping the early morning bakers come in soon so they can hurry up and get out of the place Carlos tortured him in. Plus being in the same building as a shrine built to Santanico is like being in the Twister all over again, and none of them are comfortable with that.

Freddie and Seth must think Kate's out cold around two in the morning, because that's when they start talking about her. She's in the realm between consciousness and sleep, but has enough awareness to realize she isn't dreaming, keeps her eyes closed and her breathing even as she listens intently.

"You know Carlos wants her because he wants you," Freddie says, and Kate can feel Seth tense up next to her.

"I know," Seth agrees. "But why? He's got _my_ money, Santanico isn't bothering him, and Richie can't even walk in the sun. What could he possibly get by turning Kate besides more resentment from me?"

"He could get a bargaining chip with the Nine," Freddie says. He waits a moment to let that settle in before following it up with, "I didn't want to say this earlier and worry Kate, but I've been reading Tanner's notes-- got them from the University with a false warrant over his 'disappearance,' don't ask-- and it says that the Nine are always looking for a sacrifice. They're at war with the Death Lords, each side trying to trump the other for rights to the Underworld.

"Kate's pure of heart, which makes her a perfect conduit for power. Mayans used to sacrifice warriors, not virgins, and from what you two have been doing the past eight months, it sounds like Kate definitely fits the part. Not to mention it's obvious how much you've grown attached to her, Seth. Carlos and Narcisso work for the Nine, and you and Richie are supposed to help Santanico kill them. You think if they were controlling Kate how they're controlling Scott, you'd go against them and risk her?" Freddie asks.

Seth doesn't answer him for a few minutes, and Kate's ready to stop pretending like she's asleep and get the answer for herself right when he says, "No."

"I didn't think so," Freddie sighs. "You'd do anything to keep her safe, even if she was one of the monsters you hate the most. Which means not only can Carlos and Narcisso use her to get more power from the Nine, but they can also use her to keep you from helping Santanico, meaning their bosses get to keep on living, and so do they."

"So basically they want to use her to become gods themselves," Seth says.

"Probably," Freddie says. "You've met them-- would it really surprise you if that's the case?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," Kate says, tries not to laugh when Seth jumps a little in his seat next to her from the outburst. She sits up, wipes a hand over her eyes after opening them to brush away any remnants of sleep. "You two are terrible at being inconspicuous."

"You sure you really want to go through with this, princess?" Seth asks after recovering from the scare she gave him. "If we go see Carlos, it's like serving you up on a silver platter."

"I want to know if that's what this really is," Kate says. "I don't understand why they're not just trying to kill Santanico themselves, either. And I wanna see if they're the ones going after Freddie's kind, maybe just for their help and not to _kill_ them. Because if the True Hunters are the only ones that can kill Santanico, wouldn't Carlos have come after Freddie by now to have him do that since he knows that's what he is?"

"He knows I'd kill him if he did," Freddie says.

"With what?" Kate asks, giving a small shrug at Freddie's look of offense. "Think about it, Freddie. They're working for literal _gods_ \-- wouldn't they have enough power just to come and grab you and have you off her if it was all so simple? Maybe they do want more power, but taking out the Nine's biggest threat? That'll serve to gain 'em more than using a preacher's daughter as a special coupon, or whatever. There's more to it than stopping her-- there has to be."

"Well, it looks like we're going to find out," Seth says then, and Kate turns to ask him what he means when she hears a distinct _thump_ coming from the back hall.

"Guess the bakers are in," Freddie says.

But it isn't the bakers who come from the shrine like they're all expecting-- it's an army of culebras, each one emerging more gruesome than the next.

 

 

Kate counts twelve by the time she's on her feet, stake raised and adrenaline flooding her system.

Freddie starts firing at the monsters while Seth whacks an approaching one in the head with the crowbar before shoving the sharp end of it into the culebra's heart. Kate takes out two before five fill their place, and in the melee she can see that it's like there's a never ending string of them coming out from the back hall. It reminds her of an episode of How It's Made, only replace various inanimate objects rolling endlessly on a conveyor belt with vampires.

"What the hell _is_ this!" Seth screams, grabs the hatchet out of his belt and whacks a culebra's head off, doubles around one of the tables and pushes Kate behind him as ten come for her. "The fucking _Alamo_?!"

"There's too many!" Freddie calls from where he's slamming one's head into the display case, another culebra taking its place and throwing Freddie over the counter where the Ranger falls to the floor and doesn't get back up.

"Freddie!" Kate screams, tries to surge forwards and help him.

"Stay here, princess," Seth says, holding the culebras in front of them back with another swipe of the hatchet. "Break a window. Get _out_."

"Not without you!" Kate says, pulls his gun out of the waistband of his jeans and shoots an oncoming culebra between the eyes with it. "What do they want anyways?"

"We want _you_ ," one of the culebras hisses then, holds his hand up and all of the others pause, looking intently at Kate and Seth with their fangs bared. "Come with us, Kate Fuller, and your companions will not be harmed."

"Over my dead body!" Seth snarls.

"So be it," says the culebra.

Everything moves so fast after that, Kate doesn't remember the point between where she's taking out a hidden knife and stabbing it into a culebra's heart, and the point where she gets knocked out. It's a sharp sort of pain, her body doubling under the weight of itself automatically as she feels a warm trail begin rushing down the side of her face, red clouding her vision.

Vaguely, she hears Seth calling her name before she's lifted up off the ground from where she's fallen, but then everything's silent.

"Seth..." she whispers, trying to hold on to reality but it's quickly slipping through the cracks. "Don't...leave me."

The world goes black.

 

 

"Kate!" Seth screams again as five of the monsters exit with her in tow.

He tries to fight past them to get to her, but a throng of culebras pushes him back. He falls into one of the tables, head spinning. _No, no, no,_ he thinks. _Don't you fucking dare pass out, Gecko. Save Kate. Get. **Up**._

And so he does, but when he turns to face an army of the undead, there's nothing there. It's like that night in the warehouse last week-- empty space where nightmares should be. There's no Kate either, nothing to indicate she was ever there except one of her knives laying bloody and bent on the ground where she fell.

Seth runs into the back room frantically, trying to catch up to them. There's an exit door on the south wall hanging wide open, and he makes it out just in time to hear cars speeding away down the road, looking on in horror.

"Shit," he whispers, all the breath rushing out of him. "Fucking  _shit_!"

He thinks about Kate, the way one of the fuckers whacked her upside the head almost gently but had her collapsing into darkness none the same. The way those monsters just carried her off like it was nothing, like they weren't taking away the one person that's stayed with Seth despite knowing the true horrors of him, all the terrible things he's done throughout his life.

He thinks about Kate and the way she never judges him, never tells him he's not good enough. With Richie, Seth always had to be the one that gave comfort. With Kate, he's never felt so nurtured in his entire life. He doesn't think of her as a mother or anything, not at all, but he thinks of her as his partner, his _home_ , and now Seth's gone and let her get taken by the enemy.

Seth's feet are moving before he can stop them-- he rushes back into the panderia and behind the counter, pulling Freddie up to his arms and smacking the Ranger awake. There's blood on the man's head from where it smacked into the floor after he got tossed over the counter, but he's breathing and rouses after a few moments, eyes glazed when they open.

"What happened?" Freddie asks groggily.

"They took Kate!" Seth sobs, and he realizes he's crying but doesn't even give a fuck if that makes him look weak. He doesn't give a fuck about anything but Kate and if she's okay, if he's ever going to see her again. "They fucking took _my girl_ , Gonzalez! We have to get her _back_!"

 

 

Kate wakes up on a bed softer than anything she's ever known.

For a moment she thinks she's still dreaming, but then she becomes acutely aware of the throbbing in her head. Memories of what happened before she was knocked out flood back and she sits up quickly, the world spinning as her eyes snap open.

When things finally come into focus, she can see that she's in a large room. The walls are a muted gold, furniture extravagant and large, space between them airy and light. The bed she's sitting on is a California king with a canopy above it, and the comforter's made of silk. She spreads her fingers out across it, dirty nails and calloused cuticles looking like they don't belong atop the intricate stitching.

"I gotta say," calls a gravelly, familar voice from the other side of the room. "Going with Santanico certainly was a step-up in sleeping quarters."

Kate flicks her gaze over to the source of the sound, sees none other than Richie Gecko sitting in a plush leather-backed chair near a large bay window on the right side of the bed. He looks just the same as she remembers him before he got shot, only his glasses are gone and he traded in the Bible salesman suit for a grey button-up and slacks. The shirt makes his eyes bluer than the sky, and for a moment Kate's caught up in the beauty of him, of the soft freckles on his pale skin and sharp bow of his mouth that reminds her so much of Seth.

That connection between them, the one Kate felt when she stepped out of that pool and asked Richie for a cigarette, it's still there inside of her. She can feel it in the hollow of her bones where her heartbeat accelerates, the way it feels like Richie's staring into her very soul when he meets her eyes and smirks.

And then her body registers _danger_ , _enemy_ and she's rolling off the bed, grabbing the lamp from the nightstand and raising as a weapon. She's still weak from the knock on the head, proven the moment Richie's there in a flash and grabbing the lamp out of Kate's hand, catching her when her knees buckle under the shock of it all.

"Easy, Kate," Richie says, doesn't even look like he feels it when she reaches out and scrapes her nails down the side of his face, scoring dark, bloody lines as she rips away from him and stumbles over her own feet when the room sways in front of her, falls into the lip of the extravagant bathroom door.

She lays there waiting for him to kill her for a moment, but then she remembers it's  _Richie_ , and that he would never, ever hurt her despite all of the bad he's done. No matter how far down the path of darkness Richie has gone, he's till, unfortunately, just a lost soul that Kate feels sorry for and wants to _save_. It makes it hard to hate him, and Kate feels like she's betraying Seth in the way her body still begs for Richie's touch after all this time no matter how much she tells herself it doesn't.

"You're still a fighter," Richie says as he kneels down next to her, the cuts on his face already healed. Leftover blood paints his cheek and the side of his neck, making him look like a fallen angel straight out of the Bible, come back to take Kate to Heaven after fighting in the Rapture. "Good."

"What do you want?" Kate gasps, closes her eyes when his hand reaches out to brush the hair out of his face and denies the sudden ache inside of her chest from the contact, the way electricity crackles over her skin where his touches back.

"Primarily," Richie grins. "I'd like to kiss you right now."

" _Richie_ ," Kate whispers, finally gathers her courage and looks up at him, the sky blue of his eyes and sharp angles of his teeth.

Richie sighs, lifts her up off of the ground and sets her back on the bed; Kate doesn't give him the courtesy of saying thank you, cringes when he tries to touch her jaw to turn her head and see the wound where she got hit; she can feel her hair sticking to her head there from where the blood has dried, knows she must look like an ugly, battered but doesn't care. "I could fix it for you," he says. "Just a little blood and you'll feel good as new."

"I don't want your blood," Kate snarls. "Where's Seth?"

Something in Richie's expression goes cold at the mention of his brother's name, stance guarded. "I should've known you'd go with him. Should've listened to Santanico and scooped you up before he had the chance. Now it's all fucked up because I didn't."

" _What_ 's fucked up?" Kate asks. "Answer me, Richie."

She's terrified that she's here, alone with him. With the man that empathized with her pain before holding a gun on her family, the man she kissed in the back of a strip bar and watched kill without a thought. The man that betrayed both her and Seth and chose a life of darkness over his own family. She's terrified of him and her own desires, but Kate puts on a brave face because she knows that's what she has to do, because she wants to make sure Seth's okay and doesn't want Richie to see what a mess he makes of her. Doesn't want him to think he makes her feel like she belongs with him instead of his brother.

"Us," Richie says, which shocks her more than any other answer could. "You and me, Kate. Don't you _see_?"

"I never could see things the way you do," Kate says, choosing to go with sass instead of want. "Kind of glad about that."

The corner of Richie's mouth draws up into a smile, but it's tainted by his obvious annoyance with her answer. "You really have been spending time with my brother."

" _Richard_ ," Kate warns, knows more than anything that using that name means business from all the stories Seth has told her about his baby brother.

"You're here to help us, Kate," Richie says. "Seth's safe, but not unless he helps us, too."

"Helps you what?" Kate asks, the biggest question of them all.

"Save the world," Richie says, and Kate would think he's crazy for saying it, but, shit, she crossed that bridge herself a long time ago when she cut a vampire stripper in half with a chainsaw.

 

 

 

 


	5. A bright bruise.

 

 

Kate sits there staring at a half-empty can of cherry Coke, her eyes narrowing on the shining metal and her name written into it.

Richie probably thought it was sweet, bringing her a treat from all the way across the border, her name branded in the correct spelling onto its container with her favorite soda's trademark cursive lettering. There's also a box of chocolate covered strawberries left untouched in the fridge next to a bag of McDonald's, but _God_ , no matter how much Kate misses American junk food (the fast food chain is far and few between down here in Mexico-- she checked on Isaac's laptop) she refuses to eat anything Richie's given to her as a sort of peace offering. She only caved with the Coke because she was _thirsty_ and they're in a part of Mexico where she can't drink the tap unless she wants to possibly end up like Seth after he ate those dumb back-of-a-truck tacos. Even if she is currently trapped in the nicest hotel room she's ever seen in her life, Kate knows better than to trust well water.

After pushing Richie off of her one final time when he'd gone on his whole "Save the World" speech, Kate had passed out again. She woke up earlier to late noon sunlight, looked out the hotel window and saw that they're in Piedras Negras, streets familiar from a solo hunt she and Seth went on up here about two months ago. Richie wasn't there, just a note in his place to let her know about the food in the fridge.

It's night now, and Kate really hopes she was only out a few hours, that it's Friday and not Monday, or something. She hopes that Seth is okay, that the culebras Richie obviously sent after her left him alone after grabbing her up and delivering her to the Devil's doorstep. That last thought makes her feel used and dirty, because while Richie said she's here to _help_ him, she also knows the way he touched her meant more than that. With her and Richie, things are never so simple.

It feels weird to know that spending one night with the youngest Gecko was all it took for Kate to realize that-- for her to feel the connection between them so palpably that sometimes she still thinks about the way he kissed her, soft and gentle and almost _loving_. He touched her like she was the sun and he was ready to get burned, and no one else has ever been that way with her. Even when she finally kissed Seth a few nights ago, the way he kissed back was desperate and wanting. Richie has an eternity and likes to take his time. Kate and Seth just have right here, right now, and she's mad he said they have to wait. What if she dies here with his brother and never gets to know what Seth feels like when he's inside of her?

She could feel how hard he was through their clothes, how _thick_. And she knows he'd be good at sex, that he'd know exactly what he's doing. Especially with her-- they're so familiar now that Seth knows what Kate wants without her asking, and it would probably be the same in the bedroom. She wonders if he'd go down on her, if he'd like it if she she goes down on _him_. She wonders what it would feel like to be under him, on top of him, all over each other, bodies moving in sync.

Of course Kate was taught sex before marriage is a sin, but she's also not stupid. It's the twenty-first century, and she's only human. She never went all the way with Kyle because she didn't feel like it-- didn't feel any kind of spark when they kissed. He was just a nice boy who made her feel like a pretty teenage girl in puppy love. But Seth is a man, and he makes her feel _wanted_. He makes her feel like a woman that can conquer the world. She wouldn't be afraid if they have sex-- she'd be excited, _thrilled_ even and knows that he'd make her feel good and she'd make him feel good back.

They're not the best with words that count, but actions, those they're great at.

"And here I thought you were a good girl."

Kate nearly tips over in her chair, catches herself on the lip of the small table by the hotel room's window and glares over at Richie with as much venom as she can muster as he shuts the hotel room door and locks it behind himself, reminding her she's a prisoner here. She curses her luck that somehow the room door can be locked from the outside too, that no one's investigated her screaming for help (how much did Richie have to pay someone to get _that_ to happen-- where'd he even get the money?), and that the only phone in the room is completely smashed to pieces so she can't call anyone to come and save her. Earlier she considered escaping Calvin and Hobbes style by making a bed sheet ladder and trying to climb out the window, but they're ten stories up and the Egyptian cotton sheets ran out too quick.

"You a mind reader now too?" Kate asks, stamping down the embarrassment in her chest as she realizes what Richie's words meant-- that he somehow knew she was thinking about fucking his brother. If Richie weren't a monster now, Kate would probably never let herself live it down that she got caught.

"No," Richie smirks. "But you were rubbing your thighs together and I can smell how aroused you are."

"Pervert," Kate scowls, hoping that at least maybe this means he thinks she's thinking about sex in general, and not sex with Seth.

"So have you fucked my brother yet?" Richie asks, dashing all of Kate's hope to shreds.

"That's none of your business," she snaps, crosses her arms over her chest and winces. One of the culebras cut her with its nails on her shoulder and it stings every time her skin pulls there. The ache in her head is okay now that she's slept it off, but it took five minutes of washing her hair out in the sink to get rid of the blood caked against her skull. She'd noticed the cuts then-- body too achy and sleep-worn to have realization over them before.

Richie's at her side in an instant when he sees she's hurt, putting a hand to the wound tenderly. Kate grits her teeth, tells herself that her skin definitely is not thrumming under his touch. She tries to ignore the way he almost caresses her, bites down on her tongue so she doesn't moan because the coolness of his touch feels good against the wound where it's swollen and irritated.

"I told them not to fucking hurt you," Richie says after a moment, and even though he looks calm when Kate glances over at him, she can hear the fury in his tone, the way his teeth clack together around the syllables of his words.

"I've had worse," Kate says, thinks about the time she and Seth went with the gang on a hunt a few months in and one of the culebras got a hold of Kate before she could stake it, ripped her side open so bad she had to get twelve staples to keep all of her internal organs from leaking out. Seth had been in hysterics over that one-- he said they were never hunting again, but two weeks later and there they were killing off a nest of twenty, Felipe whistling at Kate's endurance despite the way her nerves itched around the scar.

"You can take a hit, little lady," Felipe said. "I'll give you that."

Richie's eyes flash with something like rage now, and before Kate really understands what's happening, he's picking her up out of the chair and carrying her into the bathroom like she's his new vampire bride, or something.

"Put me down!" Kate says at the thought, smacking at his chest feebly. "I've already been manhandled by your lackies,  _Richard_! I don't _like this_!"

"I can see living with my brother has turned you wild," Richie says as he sets Kate down on the edge of the giant Jacuzzi bathtub.

She gets ready to get back up and bolt but Richie has enough sense to close the door, block it out with his lean, strong frame as he rifles through the medicine cabinet until he pulls out a bottle of peroxide and some bandages.

"I'm sorry I didn't notice it earlier," he says as he uncaps the bottle and comes to kneel in front of her. "I was worried about your head-- that was enough to make me kill the one that hit you. But whoever scratched you, I'm going to rip their insides out before I stake them."

"I can see living with Santanico has turned you violent," Kate says, a counter of his earlier words. Because, yeah, Richie was violent before, but only in the name of survival. Now it sounds like he does it just for fun, and that scares her.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Richie says, pours some of the peroxide on a fluffy hand towel and then blots it against the scratches on Kate's shoulder-- she hisses, digs crescents into her palm with her nails at the sizzle of disinfectant. "She _saved_ me, Kate. She could save you and Seth, too."

"Where _is_ Seth?" Kate asks, forgets all of the pain for a moment and looks Richie dead in the eye, still not used to seeing him without his glasses.

"Safe," Richie says. "For now."

"What does that mean?" Kate asks, gaze narrowing.

"He's with Ranger Gonzalez still, headed back to your _team_ \--" Richie spits out the word like it disgusts him, and Kate thinks it's funny that her and Seth having friends gets under his scales so much-- "Santanico and I wanted just _you_ for right now," Richie says. "But Narcisso and Carlos want you both."

"Did you send that girl to warn me?" Kate asks.

"What girl?" Richie answers, focusing on the task at hand of bandaging her scratches and not really registering the words.

"Nothing," Kate says, blinks away her own confusion. "It's just, we already knew about Narcisso and Carlos. They want to turn me. _Why_?"

"Because they'd get Seth," Richie says, finishes pressing gauze in place and looks up at her seriously. "I know you know about the hunters, Kate. The real ones, like Ranger Gonzalez. And Seth, and _me_."

" _What_?!" Kate asks, leans away from him in shock and, embarrassingly enough, falls back into the bathtub.

Richie fishes her out, pulls her down into his lap and she's still too stunned to punch him in his pretty face for being so boldly handsy. "We're the Maya Twins, Kate. Or, at least, we're their descendants. We _are_ the original hunters. Gonzalez is like a cousin seven times removed, or something. But Seth and me? We're the real deal."

"Wait," Kate says, her head spinning. "So it isn't you and Santanico who are trying to find them? Trying to _kill_ them so they don't kill her?"

"No," Richie says. "It's Carlos and Narcisso."

"But-- But why?" Kate asks.

Richie's hand slips up into the crook of her elbow, thumb pressing down into her pulse there. "Because we can kill the Nine Lords," Richie says. "That's why Santanico needs me _and_ Seth. Not only could we set her free, but we can kill them for her and break the curse. Lift the oppression of _our_ people."

"Your people?" Kate asks, just sort of looking at him. "Richie, you're not Mexican."

At that, Richie laughs-- it's a deep, humored laugh that makes his face pinch up like a little boy's. Kate thinks about the Christmas story Seth told her-- that year he got Richie the model airplane and his whole face lit up like he was the happiest kid in the world. Kate can see that in him now-- that happy little boy, that sliver of humanity stuffed up into Richie's shattered soul.

 _Can bad people go to Heaven?_ Kate wonders, and figures that, if so, she and Richie and Seth have a reserved place in line to let St. Thomas see their hands before entering the Pearly Gates.

"I just told you I'm the descendant of the original Mayas and you think because I'm white, I'm not Mexican," Richie finally snickers, brushes a strand of Kate's hair behind her ear intimately. "Kate, you're so naive."

Kate bristles, scrunches up her nose. "And you're a dick," she says.

Richie's smile goes somber, expression taking on something she's seen in Seth's face a million times, especially the night of her eighteenth birthday-- _jealousy_. "You never answered my question," Richie says. "You seem pretty used to Seth since you talk so much like him now, so I'm going to ask again: have you fucked my brother?"

 _Strike that, Saint Peter,_ Kate thinks as a blush fills up her cheeks. _We're all going to Hell._

"Why do you c _are_?" Kate asks, because she knows this isn't just about her-- about her choosing Seth over Richie.

Kate looks at the youngest Gecko then, at the regret and longing inside of him. She realizes then that Richie can't _stand_ the thought that Seth's with some random girl they picked up as a hostage instead of his own brother now. He can't stand that Seth and Kate have become so close so quick, that it's gotten to the point that they all know Seth would put everything on the line to save her. Sometimes Kate thinks that if she hadn't asked Seth if he wanted some company, he would've gone back to Richie eventually. But now Kate and Richie know he's only coming for her, and that's got to hurt Richie worse than if Seth would've plain and simply shoved a stake into his heart.

So, no, this isn't about her choosing Seth-- it's about Seth choosing _her_.

"You kissed me back," Richie says then, trying to mask his hurt with something as meaningless as physical contact, when Kate suddenly knows it goes so much deeper than that. He's trying to pin this all on her and himself, but it isn't just about them-- it's about Seth, too. How can it not be? "You kissed _me_ , Kate. And now, what, you're just trading up for the older model?"

"You and Seth aren't the same," Kate says, and when Richie suddenly drops her out of his lap she gasps, hits the cold tile of the floor with a _thud_.

Richie stands in a flash, pulls at his perfectly slicked back hair irately. "You don't know _anything_!" he says, the same as earlier but this time he sounds like he means it.

"But I do," Kate insists, realizes she's encroaching on dangerous territory but she has to say it. "I know that Seth would never have abandoned you like you did him."

"I didn't _abandon_ him!" Richie screams suddenly, his eyes glowing yellow and Kate scrambles up, looking for the nearest sharp object to use as a weapon-- when she finds none, her heart begins to hammer. "He _wanted_ to go!"

And Kate just stares at Richie then, fear replaced with utter disbelief because how can he be so _stupid_? "Seth didn't want to go," she says, trying to remain calm but her voice begins to steadily rise in pitch with each word. "His brother got turned into a _monster_ \-- he was scared and hurt and confused, and you chose Santanico. He wanted you to go _with_ him, Richie. He only took me as second best!"

"Then why does he love you more than _me_ now?!" Richie shouts, and when the words leave his mouth the anger goes too, replaced with rejection and sadness.

Kate didn't realize culebras could cry, that it's red and sloppy like blood and stains their cheeks crimson. She stands there next to the tub as Richie sobs, turns and stuffs a hand over his mouth to hide the sounds. Seth told her once that their father never let them cry-- that if Richie cried their dad would just beat Seth harder.

And maybe because she knows this, that's the reason why Kate steps up cautiously, wraps her arms around Richie's middle and pulls him close. He's instant to bury his head into her shoulder-- the bad one-- staining the gauze there red. She lets him keep crying though, even when the blood drips into her wounds and starts to hurt before the entire area goes numb and tingly.

"He doesn't love me more, Richie," she says. "It's just _diff'rent_."

"How so?" Richie sniffs, fingers digging into her waist.

"I don't know," Kate says, voice suddenly hoarse. "Just...different."

"I didn't choose Santanico _over_ him," Richie whispers, has finally stopped crying but continues to hold Kate close. "I did what I _had_ to. She's going to change the world, Kate. And she needs me and Seth to help. He wasn't ready back at the Twister-- but now that he's been with you, he is."

"Why?" Kate asks; sure, they hunt culebras for a living, but anyone can do that if they're not adverse to gore, know how to fight, and really don't care if they make it out alive.

Richie touches her hair then, wraps some strands of it around his fingers and _tugs_ , making Kate's body keen and the place where his tears have soaked into her wounds thrum with heat. It all rushes south when he tugs her hair a little more, baring her throat to him quite suddenly and the heat mixes with adrenaline, with terror.

"You gave him a reason to fight," Richie whispers, his lips ghosting over the artery in Kate's neck; she shivers. "He always tried to protect me, but that's because he thought he _had_ to since I'm his brother. With you, he _wants_ to."

" _It's not that I don't want you that's the problem. It's that I **do**._ "

"So you're going to use me to make him come to you and Santanico," Kate says.

"Yes," Richie answers, no guilt there at all.

"Are you going to turn me?" Kate asks; just because that girl said it was Narcisso who's after her, Kate wouldn't put it past Richie to try the same move.

"Do you _want_ me to turn you?" Richie asks, and there's something so very dark and seductive in his voice that for a moment all rational thought leaves her body and Kate wants to say _yes_. She wants him to turn her, wants to stay with him forever as long as it means he'll keep touching her like this.

And all she does anymore is  _want_ , but then she thinks of Seth-- Seth who's so very human and she loves him for that, the same way he loves her for being human right back.

"Eternity's o-overrated," Kate says, trying to be witty but her words are breathy and weak.

"It'd feel so good though, Kate," Richie purrs. "Blood tastes like everything you've ever wanted-- it's like fresh strawberries and chocolate milkshakes and honeysuckle and whiskey and horchata." She feels him lick his lips just inches away from her neck, his breath rushing out cold onto her skin. "I'd bet _you_ taste like vanilla and sunshine."

"Richie..." Kate warns, fingers reaching up to find purchase in his shirt, to shove him off but, God help her, she _can't_.

"I want to taste you, Kate," Richie says. "I've been wanting to taste you since we met. I could drink you up."

"Lord Jesus," Kate hisses, tries to keep herself from crying out when Richie leans down and presses his mouth to her pulse-- he doesn't bite her though, just sucks on the skin until it _hurts_ , a bright bruise left in wake of his mouth when he pulls back.

"You're trembling," Richie coos. "I see you haven't slept with Seth. Sweet, little, _virgin_ Katie-Cakes-- still so innocent."

 _Innocent_.

Out of all the words he's just said, that one sticks in Kate's head the most. Because, seriously, does Richie really think she's innocent just because she hasn't let some guy put his dick in her? Does Richie think she's good and pure like when he first met her, the perfect preacher's daughter who only cried behind closed doors even though her entire life was falling apart at the seams? Does Richie think she still cringes at the sight of blood, still says her prayers at night before she goes to bed?

_Dear Lord who art in Heaven, forgive me for I have sinned. I have lied and killed and taken your name in vain many times over. I also almost just let a vampire bite me even though I'm pretty much in love with his brother. Am I still **innocent**?_

"Get _off_ 'a me," Kate says then, shoves Richie back forcefully with renewed strength.

For his part, Richie seems shocked, stumbles into the sink despite his usual inhuman grace. He looks at her with wide, yellow eyes and Kate remembers her daddy, the way she had to shove a stake into his heart. She thought she was like Richie for doing that-- both of them killed their dads after all. But Richie killed his father out of maliciousness, and Kate killed hers out of mercy.

 _That's where we're different,_ Kate suddenly realizes. _I'm damaged, but he's dangerous._

They both stand there for a very long, very fueled moment. Kate's afraid to speak first, is afraid he's going to get upset and just go ahead and bite her (and whatever else he was alluding to) without her consent. She really doesn't want to believe Richie capable of such things, wants to think she knows him better than that. But, really, she only actually knew him for one night. It feels like it's been her entire life because of the connection they have, the stories Seth told her, but when it comes down to it, Kate knows nothing about Richie Gecko, and he knows nothing about her.

"Kate..." Richie says then, lifts a hand up as if to reach out to her but that's when the hotel room door slams open and closed.

"Who's that?" Kate asks, back to looking for a weapon, limbs shaking.

"Santanico," Richie says, clears his throat and straightens his clothes that got mussed from when he and Kate were holding each other; he turns to the bathroom mirror and runs the water in the sink, wipes off the leftover blood on his face from when he was crying.

Kate realizes then that her shoulder isn't numb anymore, that is actually feels _amazing_ , like new. She's so mesmerized by it that she misses Richie leaving the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Kate looks up when she hears it click closed, knows she's supposed to stay here for a moment by some natural instinct. Not to mention the fact it's part of the code she and Seth developed-- shut of the door means stay behind it. She wonders if Seth adapted that part from something he and Richie used to do?

She brushes the thought off, figures that if she's stuck in here for however long, she may as well re-dress her wounds even if they do feel fine now. She's still not sure how culebra venom works-- knows it only comes from their mouths but doesn't want to risk it being in their blood too, knows it's best just to wash the cuts out again.

Only, when she takes the bandage off, the wound is _gone_.

"What...?" Kate whispers, blinks at her unmarred skin in the mirror and reaches up to touch it-- it's as smooth as silk, fresh and pink and not sunburned like the rest of her. There isn't even a scar. She remembers Richie offering her his blood last night to make her better, and realizes this is what he meant. "Oh my God," Kate says at the same time the bathroom door opens again.

Kate watches in the mirror as Santanico Pandemonium steps through the frame, looking as beautiful and terrifying as Kate remembers her being.

It's what makes Kate spin, brace herself in a protective stance in case she has to fight. She knows that's a lost cause-- Santanico could kill her with a flick of the wrist-- but she has to at least _try_.

In response to Kate's offense, Santanico laughs. The sound is like bells and wind chimes-- deceivingly beautiful, because those things only ever ring to symbolize death and the things that linger after.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Kate," Santanico says, smiling smugly. "I'm the one that asked my workers to bring you here."

"Why?" Kate asks, tries so hard to be brave as she adds on, "and don't give me that 'save the world' bullshit. I know it's Seth you really want, but he's not going to come for me. And even if he does, I'll make him leave and _never_ help you."

"You won't do that," Santanico says, confident grin still in place as Richie sidles up next to her, hand lingering at the woman's waist and Kate cringes as something sharp strikes her-- _jealousy_ \-- and she has no right to feel it.

"And why's that?" Kate asks, envy making her tone even more acidic.

"Because, Kate Fuller," Santanico says, gaze full of purpose. "I'm going to help you get your brother back."

 

 

"What the _hell_ is taking so long?!" Seth demands, tapping his foot impatiently.

The moment he woke Gonzalez up, they tried to follow after the culebras that took Kate. Two hours of driving aimlessly made them realize they weren't going to get to her that way, and they needed to regroup and think this through.

Seth called the team, and they met him the middle. Talia and Amber and Thiago are back from their hunt relatively unscathed, and the latter even brought his pal, Martin. Felipe and Isaac and Loui drove together, brought every weapon that they own plus some from the store Isaac's grandma keeps in their basement.

"Do you think it was Santanico?" Felipe asked the moment he met Seth at the agreed rendezvous point-- some shit hole motel in the middle of Allende, one rented room for nine people but Seth doesn't care if they have space.

He just wants Kate back.

And he can't help thinking this is all his fault that she got taken in the first place. They should have been more careful with fucking Carlos and Narcisso after her. They should've called for back-up before breaking into that goddamn bread shop. He should've fought harder, should've gotten up sooner and saved her.

Kate's saved his ass more times than he can count, and now when Seth's gotten the chance to return the favor, he's let her down.

"I don't know," Seth answered. "I don't know!"

They were able to calm him down only remotely (mainly because Amber brought him a bottle of whiskey and told him to drink until he could breathe normally again) and then Thiago decided to call the guy he knows who keeps tabs on Santanico.

"He says he'll meet us in an hour," Thiago said after hanging up. "But you guys won't like him."

"Why?" Gonzalez asked, as silent and guilt-wracked as Seth.

"He's a culebra," Thiago shrugged.

So now, an hour later, the fucking informant _still_ isn't here, and Seth's about ready to just get up and go. Anymore it's like he's so in-tune with Kate, there has to be a way for his body to seek her out naturally, right? Every move she makes, he knows she's going to make it. It's the same for her with him.

After Richie left, Seth didn't think he'd ever be able to be partners with anyone again. He only let Kate tag along because he felt bad that her family was dead because of him, technically. Even so, he kept telling himself to let her go, send her home or to Gonzalez or something, give her a chance to get out of this life while she still could because Seth knew he was the worst kind of fucking bastard for saying yes to her offer to come with in the first place.

That first morning he did leave, made it thirty minutes away before turning back around because he'd somehow convinced himself it wasn't safe to just leave her there. He found her curled up on her side, hand reached out to where he was laying the night before. And she just looked so _young_ , so broken.

He couldn't leave her-- he couldn't leave her because he's broken too, and they need each other.

So he stayed, wrote her a note on a sheet from the Bible to be witty, got her some food and a dress and pretended not to hear her crying in the bathroom.

And then they met Felipe two days later, and when Kate heard the whole story and didn't leave of her own accord, Seth was _glad_ he'd accepted her company. Even when she insisted they go on that first hunt less than a week after making it out of the Twister, she was just saying what he wanted to say but didn't have the balls to. Because it feels _good_ to kill the monsters who took it all from you-- feels good to take it back.

Not to mention him and Kate work well together-- at first Seth felt like he was taking care of her because he had to, because she had to kill her own father thanks to him and her brother got turned into a monster just like his. But then, by the time they moved in together, things were different. They were _more_.

Seth wasn't lying when he told her loving Richie was like a time bomb, or that Vanessa was always waiting for him to fuck up. But with Kate-- being with Kate is easy. Seth knows, he _knows_ she isn't going to leave him. Because, god _damn_ , no matter what kind of asshole he is to her, she never leaves him. She barely even yells back, just tells him he's being a brat and lets him sweat it out.

And when they pushed their beds together-- _fuck_ , that was his total undoing.

He's thought Kate's beautiful from the start, but she's so young. She was only seventeen when they met, for Christ's sake. Jail bait. Forbidden fruit. All those bullshit sayings. And she was covered in tragedy, and he couldn't make the hurting stop. But, shit, when she smiles, the way she smells, the way she _feels_ under his hands-- he can never stop thinking about it.

And then she turned eighteen, a stark reminder that she's a woman now even though Kate's actually been a woman since the start. Had to grow up too fast, but she wears it well. She's strong and selfish and impulsive, but she's also the most caring, giving person Seth has ever met.

Not once in his entire life has Seth had someone that wants to take care of him-- Vanessa tried, but she got frustrated when he didn't just assimilate to it right away. But Kate, Kate has patience out the fucking wazoo. She doesn't treat Seth like he's stupid, like she expects him to do it faster.

She says she's proud of him and he knows she means it, because _he_ means it when he says the same thing of her.

This life they have, it ain't easy, but it's theirs. They left the Twister in mangled, broken hunks and somehow put each other back together again minus the duck tape. Without Kate, Seth would've been some pathetic mess pining for Richie until his dying breath. But now when Seth thinks about his brother, he doesn't want the new Richie so much as the old.

But he wants _whatever_ Kate has to give him.

Growing up with someone is different than learning from someone. And while Seth's never going to love anyone more than his brother just because there's something hungry and hollow inside of him that won't _let_ him, he sure does fucking love Kate. And maybe that makes him an old pervert or a sap, but it's fucking true, okay.

He's just never said it because the word _love_ is like a curse for him-- everything he's ever loved has claws marks on it from being snatched away too soon.

It's why he didn't sleep with her when she asked the other night. Because, fuck, did he want to-- he _always_ wants to. But he didn't want to rush it either, didn't want her to use him as something to stamp the hurt down. Maybe that makes him a hypocrite, because he's used people for less, but he can't do that with Kate.

But, fucking A, he should have. He should have kissed her more, kissed her _everywhere_ and showed her that just because her old family is gone, that doesn't mean she can't have one with _him_. They've made a home together, somehow. Seth isn't as attached to the hunting team as Kate is, he knows, but they're his friends and he's kind of, as much as possible, _happy_ with them. With _Kate_.

He should have fucked her. He should have fucked her and held her and loved her before it was too late, before she was snatched up and he's left here to not know what the fuck is going on, waiting for the enemy to tell them.

"Come on," Seth says, looking at the horizon as the sun sets.

"You need more alcohol," Amber murmurs, is silenced by Seth's glare of a reply.

The culebra Thiago knows shows up five minutes later, turns off his car and gets out puffing a cigarette. **  
**

Seth pounces, slams the bastard back into the car door so the cigarette falls out of his mouth and he fangs out a little in surprise. "We don't have time for leisure," Seth snarls. "What do you know?!"

"Seth, man, calm down," Loui says, trying to pull him off, but Seth shoves the kid away, livid and anxious and _terrified_ because he still doesn't have Kate back.

"Santanico's off the map. I don't know where the hell she went; she's leaving her trail spotless, somehow," the culebra in Seth's hands says, dark eyes narrowing. "I don't know if she has your girlfriend, but we can still find your girl, possibly."

"How?" Seth asks.

"If you let me go," the culebra says. "I'll tell you."

The monster's name is Marco. He's originally from Turkey or something-- Seth doesn't really care-- and is over four hundred years old. He can walk in the sun, and he knows a way to track demigoddesses and hunters and whatever else you fancy with some weird Maya voodoo shit, though it's a vague outcome when figuring things out. And because Seth is desperate, vague is what he has to settle for.

"We need something of Kate's that's a personal belonging," Marco says, setting up some weird chalk lines and herbs on the ground.

Seth looks over at Felipe expectantly, and the hunter nods, steps up and hands off the item Seth asked him to swing by their apartment and get before he came.

The single bullet feels heavy in Seth's hand as he measures it up-- Kate still doesn't understand what it's for, so Seth figures she won't mind if they borrow it to worship Satan, or whatever they fuck they're doing to save her ass from a bunch of crazy culebras.

"Okay," Marco says after Seth hands off the bullet. "Now we just need--"

He's interrupted by the ring of a cell phone, tone that Seth recognizes as his own. Adrenaline spikes in his system as he thinks that maybe it's Kate, pulls the cell out quickly and answers it, cursing her name into the line and telling her to tell him that she's okay, that she's _human_.

" _Not for long,_ " a familiar voice answers.

Seth blinks, body twitching as he looks around the circle of hunters who are looking back at him. "Hello, Carlito. Long time, no see," Seth says.

Carlos laughs, and _fuck me_ , Seth forgot how annoying the bastard's voice is. " _I take it you are eager to have Kate back then, Seth?_ "

"What the fuck did you do to her?" Seth asks, entire body seizing with rage and fear.

" _Nothing, nothing,_ " Carlos assures, easy-breezy, and Seth could knock the prick's motherucking fangs out. " _But I cannot guarantee it will stay that way unless you do as I say._ "

Isaac, who's been listening into the call, waves his hands in an ' _abort, abort'_ manner, but Seth just asks, "What do you want?" because he'd rather die than see Kate get turned into a monster like Carlos and Narcisso want.

Seth's already lost Richie that way-- he'll be damned if he lets that happen to Kate, too.

" _I want you to meet me, Seth,_ " Carlos says. " ** _Alone._** "

"Where?" Seth asks.

" _There's instructions in the glove department of the car you took from the Twister. Come at dusk tomorrow._ " Carlos answers. " _Kate says Scorsese, by the way. Remember not to be late._ "

"Wait-- let me talk to Kate to make sure you aren't fucking with me. Carlos? _Carlos_!" Seth screams, but the other line is already dead.

For a moment Seth just sits there waiting like a moron for Carlos to answer back, and then he chucks his cell phone against the wall and watches it shatter. ' _Scorsese_ ' is part of the code Seth and Kate made together, and it means she's in trouble. Seth doesn't understand how Carlos could've known that without Kate telling him, and it makes him turn and punch the wall in sheer frustration, snarling as the plaster shatters beneath his fist. Everyone else remains silent as he stands and stomps from the motel room, doesn't stop walking until he's by the pool, standing above the water and looking down at the lights reflecting off the bottom.

In the spare moments between bloodshed and death that night at the Twister, Richie told Seth how he found Kate. Seth thought his brother was acting even crazier than usual of course, saying he saw her bleeding out into the pool, but then Seth actually _looked_ at the girl, at the hurt inside he knew so well from experience, and he thought maybe Richie had some merit to his seeing thing after all.

Ever since they made it out of that place alive, Seth's promised it to himself never to watch Kate bleed out again, and even though he's a thief and a liar and terrified, Seth is determined to keep that promise no matter what.

 

 

 

 


	6. A violent reminder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit slow, but I felt it was important to get some girl time bonding in because I feel like in another life Kate and Santanico would've actually been friends. They're very alike in a lot of ways, and I think it'd be so easy to feel sympathy for Santanico, and Kate has to figure out a way not to let that break her.

 

* * *

 

Okay, so admittedly, having to hang out with Santanico Pandemonium while Richie goes to get Kate something to eat isn't _so_ bad.

Richie offered to get Kate room service when she finally caved at around four-thirty in the morning, her stomach growling viciously but she didn't want the stale McDonald's in the fridge. Kate asked what was on the menu and when he prattled off things like braised steak and Coq Au Vin and other fancy dishes at outrageous prices her stomach turned. Her entire life, Kate's been raised simple and humble, and just because it seems that Richie and Santanico have money now doesn't mean she wants to take advantage. She's a prisoner and doesn't want to live in the lap of luxury for it.

"Is there like, a take-out place around here?" Kate asked, picking at the dried blood underneath her fingernails that had settled and caked since her fight with the culebras last night.

"There's a taco stand a few streets over that smells okay," Richie answered.

"Do they have anything vegetarian?" Kate asked, because the idea of eating anything with a face and blood in front of two vampires made her feel uneasy.

"I can check," Richie said.

"Do that," Kate nodded.

It was only after Richie pulled on his suit jacket and left that Kate realized she'd just written herself alone into a room with the queen of the culebras herself.

After Santanico said that she could help Kate get Scott back, everything went a little fuzzy and Kate had to lay down for a while. The plan would be simple, all things considered-- Richie would help Kate get into where Carlos and Narcisso are staying, fish Scott out, and then run away with him like Kate should have done eight months ago. Once they had that all taken care of, Kate would convince Seth to help Santanico and Richie defeat the Nine Lords.

Kate hasn't taken the deal yet.

Because, really, it all sounds too crazy. Who's to say Scott even _wants_ to come back to her? That he doesn't want to stay with Carlos, the man that made Scott stronger than the bullies he was so terrified of? Not to mention, Kate doesn't know if she can trade her brother for Seth, no matter how much she loves Scott. Her father made her promise to help him, but her father's dead and Scott's a monster and Seth is Kate's home now. He trusts her, and she made a promise to him too, one that she would never, _ever_ help Richie and Santanico no matter what.

But the idea of Scott right there in her grasp, it's so tempting.

And Kate knows the Nine Lords are bad people, that they _should_ be stopped. She's heard the story by now, how they turned Santanico into a monster because she refused to have sacrifices made to her in their name. The Lords created culebras simply because someone disobeyed them-- they ruined an innocent little girl's life because she didn't want other people's blood on her hands.

Then again, Santanico's spilled innocent blood whether she wanted to or not, lots and lots of it. She's ruined Kate's life the way the Lords ruined hers. Tanner said that Kate was meant to be Santanico's stand-in that night at the Twister, that there's something pure and full of light inside of Kate's soul that would give the Lords appeasement. If Freddie hadn't of come in when he did, Kate might be dead right now, her guts laid out and rotting on an altar.

But Freddie came, and since then Kate's life has steadily fallen into darkness. The light inside of her soul feels tainted now, taken over by something hungry for revenge. She had to kill her own father because Santanico wanted an out-- had to watch her brother becomes something he's not.

Kate doesn't regret that she went with Seth after that night, but sometimes she wonders what would've happened had her father lived, had Scott not gotten bitten. Would they have gone back to Bethel, pretended like none of what they had seen had happened? Would there still be this violent need in her to kill monsters and bad men, to fight her way out of a life she never even asked for?

"It isn't good to dote on it."

Kate looks up from where she's still picking at her nails, thighs shifting tensely against the comforter beneath her. Santanico's staring in her direction, bright eyes and a serious expression. She looks like a fallen angel perched over there in a chair by the window, neon light from the nightclub across the road spilling in and slanting over her face. Kate wonders if she has wings, if they're stained and tarnished instead of a pure, crisp white. Because there's also something feral about Santanico, something strong and willful yet she looks utterly sad, too old to hold happiness in her shoulders anymore.

"Do you read minds too?" Kate asks, glaring at the woman for intruding upon her thoughts.

"No," Santanico laughs. "But I'm good at seeing regret."

Kate frowns, stops fidgeting with her nails and begins to braid her hair instead. When she notices Santanico get up out of the corner of her eye though, she tenses, watches as the woman comes to sit next to her on the bed. For a moment they just look at each other, then Santanico reaches out and touches a half-braided strand of Kate's hair tenderly, almost in a mothering sort of touch.

"May I?" Santanico asks.

Kate's so shocked that a culebra-- _the_ culebra, the one that started this all-- is offering to braid her hair, that she simply nods like a dumbass, blinks when Santanico starts weaving the strands together with an expert hand, scraping her nails against Kate's scalp here and there until it makes the tension leave Kate's body in automatic response. When she was little, Kate's mom used to play with her hair all the time, and it's like this programmed reaction that the moment someone touches Kate's head, she sort of just settles in familiar comfort. Maybe that's stupid of her to do considering she's in the proximity of the most dangerous woman in the world right now, but something in her body says this is okay, that she doesn't have to worry about Santanico eating her.  _Yet_.

"I used to be like you," Santanico says after a while, catching Kate off-guard. "Wide-eyed and so full of hope it made me sick. I thought the world was a good place, but then it proved me wrong."

"I know the feeling," Kate answers.

Santanico pauses in her work, making Kate turn and look at the woman curiously. "Do you?" Santanico asks, and she isn't so much being condescending as wondersome.

"I killed my dad at your temple," Kate answers. "I watched my brother get turned into a monster."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Santanico says, and it almost sounds like she _means_ it. "But you have to know, Kate, we are not monsters. Your brother is not a monster."

"He bit my dad," Kate says, anger making her tone sharp. "That's why I had to kill him. He didn't want to be like _you_."

"That was your father's choice," Santanico says. "We always give our offspring a choice when we can."

"Carlos didn't," Kate says, because she knows in her bones he didn't ask Scott if he wanted this-- he couldn't have. Maybe Scott's a monster now, but Kate knows he wouldn't have said yes if it was offered to him. Not until he knew what the deal really implied-- that it meant taking it would turn him into a pawn, someone for Carlos to use against the Fuller family.

Scott wanted to be strong, not a piece in some screwed up game of gods and monsters.

Then again, Kate wonders, maybe Scott would've agreed to be changed just to _belong_. He has always felt like an outsider, Kate knows that. But she also has to hope that somewhere deep down, Scott knows she loves him, that even though he's always felt like the Stitch to her Lilo, she's never thought of him as anything but her brother. He _has_ to know that, and he wouldn't have bitten their dad if he wasn't so blinded by hunger, by sadness and grief and the need to not be alone.

Something in Santanico's gaze goes dark then after Kate's mentioned Carlos' name, and it should frighten Kate, but it doesn't. She knows the anger isn't directed towards her, especially when Santanico sighs and begins braiding Kate's hair again nonchalantly. "Carlos has...lost his way."

"Freddie says he's as old as you, nearly," Kate mutters, tries to find the right words to continue on with. "Do you think that maybe...maybe eternity drives people nuts?"

"Yes," Santanico answers without hesitance. "If they let it."

"But you haven't let it?" Kate asks, eyes steadily on the floor and not looking at the woman behind her.

If you had told Kate eight months ago she'd be having a conversation with the queen of Mexican vampires like they were old friends, she would've laughed right in your face. Now, though, it feels almost _easy_ to talk to Santanico. There isn't any threat from the woman, nothing left in Kate's instincts to tell her to back down from this. It feels as if this was _meant_ to happen-- like Kate was supposed to see life from the other side.

She hates that even good Christians can develop sympathy for the Devil.

Then again, Kate hasn't been a good Christian for a long time now.

"No," Santanico says. "I have wronged many people to get where I am at today, but I do not regret that. I do not regret fighting for my freedom. Breaking away from one's oppressors has never come without sacrifice."

 _But you got cursed because you didn't want sacrifice,_ Kate thinks, realizes it's better not to say that and remains silent instead. For her part, Santanico just keeps braiding Kate's hair, until finally Kate can feel her finish it off, hands Santanico a ponytail holder from around her wrist and looks ahead as Santanico ties the braid in place, hands lingering near Kate's neck for just a moment.

"Go see how you like it," Santanico finally says.

Body on autopilot, Kate stands and stumbles her way into the bathroom. When she looks up in the mirror her breath catches-- Santanico has turned her hair into a waterfall of braids, dark strands twisted intricately and beautifully. It frames Kate's face in the perfect way, making her look pretty and sweet but also sort of dangerous, if she squints hard enough.

"I like playing with hair," Santanico says from the doorway of the bathroom. "Being locked up in the same prison for five-hundred years makes one good at little things."

"How did you keep up with the times?" Kate asks, curiosity taking root in her chest.

"The patrons that came," Santanico shrugs. "And Carlos brought me magazines and books, and we also got a television when it was invented. Not to mention, wifi."

"Wifi in a vampire strip bar," Kate laughs. "How ingenious."

Santanico smiles back, steps up and shadows Kate's reflection. "You should let me do your make-up. Every girl should know which style fits them best."

"My momma didn't like it when I wore make-up," Kate whispers.

"She was afraid she'd have to beat the boys back at the door, I'm sure," Santanico says. "The thing about make-up is that it's a mask-- it enhances your best parts and eclipses the worst, making you look untouchable. And when you look untouchable, men always want to strip that away from you. Get you in their hands and _squeeze_ until there's nothing left but the image they've made of you in their head."

"Do you love Richie?" Kate asks before she can help herself, bites down on her tongue afterwards and closes her eyes, expecting Santanico to get angry at her for the question.

But she doesn't.

Instead Santanico simply touches the bottom of Kate's chin softly, makes the girl look up at her. "I do," Santanico says. "But I suppose it's different than the love you're asking of."

"What do you mean?" Kate says.

"I love him because he is strong," Santanico says. "Not because he is tender-- the reason you love him."

"I don't love him," Kate says.

Santanico just smiles. "And I suppose you don't love Seth either?"

"That's different," Kate answers, figures there's no use in lying because Santanico's able to see through her more easily than if she were looking through a piece of butterfly netting up at the sun.

"Is it?" Santanico asks, and it doesn't escape Kate's noticed the way Santanico's fingers are pressing into the bruise Richie sucked into Kate's neck earlier, a violent reminder of the intimacy she has with him. "We all play a role in this, Kate Fuller. You, Seth, Richie, me. We are all part of a bigger fate than simply trying to tear each other's throats out."

"What do you mean?" Kate asks, swallowing down the fear beginning to well up in her throat.

Santanico doesn't answer her right away, sits Kate down on the closed lid of the toilet in direction and pulls out a bag of make-up from one of the drawers in the sink vanity. She starts dusting Kate's face with a sheer powder, followed by painting shadow onto Kate's eyelids and blush on her cheeks. Kate wonders where she got an ivory tone of concealer, since Santanico's skin is darker than her own, if Santanico was  _planning_ and giving Kate her own mask from the start.

"The world is not made on the foundation of Gods," Santanico finally answers when she's half-way through tracing Kate's lips in red a few shades brighter than the lipstick Santanico herself wears. "It is made on free-will and humanity. Gods created us because they were bored and wanted something to play with, but we outsmarted them. We flourished and claimed this place as our own. Even your Christian Bible tells you that-- how Adam and Eve fled Eden after angering your God because they didn't _obey_."

"They were sinners," Kate whispers.

"Aren't we all?" Santanico smirks.

 

 

By the time Santanico's done using Kate as her very own Barbie doll, Richie comes back, carrying three separate take-out bags in hand. "They didn't have anything vegetarian at the taco stand, so I got you salad and a veggie burger and some chips and salsa from a few different places just in--"

He stops talking when Santanico steps out of the bathroom followed by Kate, his eyes concentrating on the latter. Kate blushes when she meets Richie's gaze, knowing she probably doesn't look like the mousy girl he's used to. Her hair's still all done-up, her eyes sharper with liner and shadow, cheeks rosy, mouth full and cherry-pie sweet. The last thought makes her want to snort with laughter-- maybe that creep outside of the Twister was right.

And for a moment Kate thinks that Richie's going to say something nice, tell her she looks pretty or give her compliment equally as dumb and totally irrelevant to the situation they're in. She kind of _hopes_ he will, feels stupid for wanting something so normal and mundane from him. They're not just a regular boy and girl, after all. Maybe if they had met somewhere else, they would be. Maybe Kate would've actually fallen in love with the younger Gecko brother. Maybe Seth would still be married to Vanessa and they'd be a big, strange family.

But that didn't happen, and here they are, a culebra and a human, and when Richie's expression turns from one of shock into rage, and he's stomping over to Kate in just a few long strides, holding her face in his hands brutally tight, she thinks that maybe feeling stupid for her fantasies was a good thing.

"What did you _do_?!" Richie asks, sneering over at Santanico.

"We were just having fun," Santanico says, looking very annoyed and somewhat offended.

" _Fuck_ ," Richie says, shakes his head and rubs a hand over Kate's mouth, making her reel back in insult as he wipes away the red there, smears it down her jaw like blood. "You made her look like _you_!"

"I thought you liked the way I look," Santanico fires back, tone rising steadily just as Richie's has been since he started talking.

"I like the way Kate looks too," Richie answers, and Kate's stomach turns as she realizes this is all going to turn into a fight.

Sure enough, it does. Richie and Santanico start yelling at each other about things Kate doesn't understand, Santanico ranting about how Richie can't let go of the past, Richie ranting about how Santanico's trying to turn Kate into some kind of emotionless, impure  _thing_. For a moment Kate just looks between them before glancing over at the door, wanting to get out and away from all the yelling because it's kind of freaking her out.

It's then she notices that Richie didn't shut the door all the way when he came in, probably wanted to put the food down first and was confident Kate couldn't slip past him.

 _I'm an idiot for doing this,_ Kate thinks, right before she runs.

 

 

"I think you're ten kinds of  _loco_ for doing this, man," Loui says as Seth lays there on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling absently.

"Wouldn't you do it if it were Thomas?" Seth asks, glancing over at the kid and expecting an answer.

Loui shifts his mouth a little, weighing Seth's words. Feeling patient, Seth gives him a moment, goes back to looking at the ceiling and the water stains seeping through its tiles. After Carlos hung up on him, Seth checked the car and, sure enough, there were directions tucked into the glove department. Seth doesn't really fucking want to know or care how Carlos got those in there undetected, but has them memorized none the less. The coordinates led to some stupid night club in Monterrey-- and _of course_ it's a night club, the thing Seth and Kate hate most.

He still remembers how freaked out she'd been a few weeks ago when they went to the one in the city on her birthday-- how she was probably having flashbacks to the Twister because he was too. And then she danced with that dumb fuck of a college kid, and Seth had been so stupidly jealous he went and fucked things up as always, got in a fight with Kate and ruined her birthday without even trying.

So if she really is being held on Barrio Antinguo in one of the few remaining clubs that fronts for the local drug cartel-- as Felipe has informed everyone-- Seth knows that Kate is ten kinds of pissed and afraid right now.

It makes him itch with anticipation, knowing that Kate's probably bound and gagged somewhere in the dark, reminded of when that bastard, Sex Machine, tried to sacrifice her. Because of course Seth remembers that, remembers the fear in Kate's eyes when she finally told him her side of the story. He also remembers rescuing her from that group of culebras that tied her up just like Sex Machine, how he barely even knew Kate then but was willing to risk his life to get her back.

Seth should've realized that very moment that he was hooked-- he's never been willing to put his own ass on the line for anyone but Richie, yet it only took Kate a few hours to turn him into the goddamn captain of the Kate Fuller Defense Squad 2K14, or whatever. Because when they first got into the tombs and Jacob hurt his leg, Seth didn't keep the doors open for him, but for  _Kate_ , who refused to leave her father behind. Even after Seth had found Richie again, walked away from his brother for the last time, he was thinking about Kate, if she'd lived or found Scott. And then she was just standing there waiting for him, sunlight glowing off her skin, and it was probably more than guilt that made Seth agree to letting her come with him.

He wants to run in and save her right now, but knows he can't-- Carlos told him to wait until dusk, and Seth isn't going to risk Kate's safety by deviating from the plan. 

After the call from Carlos, Talia reasoned it'd be a good idea for them to have Marco find Kate anyways, see if Carlos wasn't pulling their leg. Seth doubted it with the whole Scorsese thing, but he knew it was better safe than sorry. Unfortunately the vagueness of the spell was more vague than usual, and Marco could come up with nothing more than that Kate is with other vampires. Marco's hebejebes voodoo crap didn't say which ones of course, meaning it could be Carlos or Santanico or goddamn Bela Lugosi, but Seth isn't willing to risk calling what could or couldn't be Carlos' bluff when he has no idea if Kate's okay, and when Carlos knew their code. 

Besides, it's not like Seth's actually gonna go this alone. He's not stupid enough to think this isn't a trick one way or another. Carlos wants something from Seth, and that's why he's using Kate as leverage. So Seth's going to use some leverage of his own in the form of his team, as well as the tag-alongs of Marco and Martin and Gonzalez, the latter having refused to leave because he feels like it's his fault Kate got taken since it was his idea to break into the panderia at night without backup. Seth would like to take the easy route and agree with the Ranger, but he knows Kate would chastise him for doing that, so instead he's simply accepted Gonzalez's help and is kind of glad to have the reinforcement.

Once they got here to Monterrey, Amber called up her big-time boyfriend and was able to book them a stay in some vacation home near the edge of the city in less than an hour. There's enough space that everyone can have a separate outlet to set up a phone tree to call in some favors and possibly more back-up, and Isaac was able to get enough internet reception to access that weird hunter's web forum and ask around for some inside scoops, download the blueprints of the club Carlos told Seth to meet him at so they can find the nearest escape route if everything goes sour. It's times like these where Seth's kind of glad Kate made them settle down with their hunting team.

"I guess I would," Loui finally says in answer to Seth's question. "I just don't want anyone to get hurt if Carlos doesn't actually have Kate."

"What else have we got to go on?" Seth asks. "Culebras took her, and it's not exactly like Santanico called with a ransom amount."

"Would she do that?" Loui asks.

Seth shrugs. "Hell if I know. She did try and steal _my_ money back at the Titty Twister, so probably."

The two men lapse into silence after that, Loui sitting down on the edge of the sofa and picking up Seth's feet into his lap. It took Seth a while to let anyone but Kate touch him after the Twister, but once he'd gotten used to a routine with people, with a  _family_ , simple things like this don't bug him anymore. He lived most of his life afraid of physical contact, whether it be from memory of abuse or because he was terrified of how much he just wanted someone to fucking hold him sometimes. Maybe that's why he still overdose it with people he really cares about. First with Richie, then Vanessa, and now Kate. Maybe it's good Seth's learning how to make simple gestures, even if Loui  _is_  bouncing his feet on the floor and making the lower half of Seth's body shake, which is kind of annoying.

"It's almost sunrise," Talia says, poking her head through the doorway that separates the home's living room from the kitchen, where she's been arguing with someone in Mandarin in the kitchen for the last half-an-hour. "We should get some rest. Especially you, Gecko. You've been up for what, like, sixty hours now?"

"I took a nap between meeting Gonzalez at the panderia and breaking into it," Seth snorts.

"Still," Talia says. "You need to keep up your strength for tonight."

Seth rolls his eyes at her, gives in to her mothering none the less and shuffles off into one of the home's bedrooms. The bed is a queen, about the same size as Seth and Kate's bed back home. He lays down on the right side, like he's used to, struck by the sudden feeling of how fucking weird it is not to have Kate next to him. Maybe it's because he's a creature of habit, or maybe it's because he hasn't slept alone since he was eleven months old. Growing up, Seth always shared a room with Richie. And then he shared one with Vanessa for a while, another with three cell-mates in prison. And then he came back to Richie again, before finally settling down next to Kate at night.

It's been a very long time since Seth Gecko's been on his own, and he kind of really doesn't fucking like it.

 

 

Kate makes it into the hotel hall and down the first couple of flights of stairs quickly, pushing her body to its limits as she runs faster than she ever has in her entire life.

Back home in Bethel, she used to do a couple of laps around her block a few nights a week. It was mainly to keep her cardio up for when she re-joined swim team every fall, but over time Kate got good at running, came to enjoy it even. There was always something exhilarating about her feet lifting off the ground, wind whipping her face and her body going somewhere, moving, moving, _moving_.

But right now Kate doesn't feel exhilarated-- she feels terrified and confused and like she wants to stop, break-down and cry.

No more than five minutes ago, she was sitting in the bathroom letting Santanico give her a make-over like her mother should've been the first to do. She was talking with the woman as if they were friends, not enemies. She was thinking that for the first time in a long time, she felt like a normal girl, felt pretty and silly and wanted Richie to look at her and smile. Act like they weren't at war with each other, like she wasn't a prisoner and he wasn't waiting on her to betray his brother for her own.

Then Richie had dug the fantasy a grave and thrown it right in, breaking the shovel as he covered it up, and Kate remembered why she was here, what this all means. It feels like she betrayed Seth by even letting Santanico _touch_ her, for wanting Richie to treat her like a normal girl, for acting like this was all okay. She'd like to blame her bump on the head and sleep deprivation, but Kate knows that's not it.

She knows that she actually feels _sorry_ for Santanico; that no matter how much she tries to deny the connection between them, she always wants Richie to treat her like something she isn't to him-- like that kiss they shared at the Twister meant more than a simple need for human connection in a place so otherworldly it was terrifying.

The steps are like a downwards slope beneath her feet-- Kate can hear someone clambering down behind her, wonders how they haven't caught her yet when she ducks into a random hall, starts banging on the walls and people's doors left and right.

" _Help_!" she screams. "Someone h _el_ \--!"

She's cut off by a sudden hand around her mouth, a body taking over hers that she instantly recognizes as Richie's by the lean lines of him, the calluses on his fingertips. The elevator in the middle of the hall dings open and a couple steps out-- Richie shoves past them and slams the _close door_  button before the couple even gets a chance to realize he's got Kate in a practical choke-hold, her limbs flailing and kicking, screams gurgled into Richie's skin. To them it must look like Kate and Richie are just another couple locked in an intimate embrace, a sight full of situational irony.

Looking up, Kate watches as the floor numbers ding by and realizes they're going _down_ and not _up_.

When Richie finally lets go of her, Kate spins, kicks him sharply in the groin and takes a step back as he crumbles. "Where the _hell_ are we going?" she growls.

Richie squints up at her, grimacing. "You really _have_ been living with Seth."

" _Richie_ ," Kate warns.

"Okay, okay," Richie says, straightening up. He dusts off his clothes and slicks back his perfect hair; for a moment Kate wants to kick him again, but figures that will get her nowhere except one step closer to making him eat her because he's pissed off and tired of her antics. "We're going to get Scott."

" _What_?" Kate asks, irritation replaced with bewilderment; she's so confused that she doesn't even realizes the elevator's come to a stop, doors opening into the front lobby where the early morning staff is rushing about, preparing for the day.

Richie sighs, grabs the crook of her elbow and pulls her out of the elevator. "Don't scream or make a scene, and I'll tell you," he whispers, lips ghosting against the shell of Kate's ear and making her shiver despite telling herself not to.

Kate follows him mutely as he leads them out a side-door in the lobby, knows it's better to get her questions answered than trying to get away again. If he wanted to, Richie could slaughter everyone around them without a second thought. It'd be a big ordeal, but he would do it if Kate tries to run for the second time, especially if he wants something from her. After she realizes this, Kate feels kind of bad that she tried to get people's attention a couple of floors up, is glad that the couple getting off the elevator didn't notice Richie manhandling her and said something, which would've given him reason enough to hurt them.

Richie leads her into the parking deck just as morning begins to stretch over the horizon. Kate watches as soft rays of sunlight slit against the concrete ground, Richie purposely side-stepping them. He stops walking when they get to a big, black SUV on the second level of the parking deck. The windows are tinted pitch-black, and for a moment Kate really doesn't understand how Richie can see out of them before he's opening the passenger side door for her and helping her in. She glances at him wearily as he slams the door closed and gets into the driver's side, a muscle in his jaw twitching just slightly.

"Won't Santanico be mad we're leaving?" Kate asks.

"She knows not to mess with me right now," Richie snaps, and his tone is so dangerous Kate doesn't push.

He starts up the car and pulls out of the lot, starts down a main road and heads south-west. Clubs and hotels pass by in a blur, and before Kate knows it they're on the highway, headed to God knows where. They make it about a couple of miles when she can't take the silence anymore, turns in her seat and opens her mouth to ask what Richie meant earlier when he stops her from starting by throwing a handkerchief at her.

"You should wipe your face off," Richie says softly. "Your make-up's smudged from me and crying."

Kate blinks, brings down the passenger visor and flips it open to a lit mirror, sees that, sure enough, her mascara is running and there's tears still slipping down her face. She swallows, wonders how she didn't even notice she's even crying; has no idea _why_  she's crying in the first place as she begins wiping away the smudges with the handkerchief, caking inky black and violent red onto its stiff, white lace edges.

By the time she's done it's like she wasn't even wearing make-up at all, and the pretty braids Santanico did her hair up in are frayed and mangled from running and Richie grabbing her.

"Are you going to tell me why we're getting Scott?" Kate finally asks, tucking the handkerchief into her lap.

"Because I'm not going to make you like her," Richie says.

"What do you mean?" Kate asks.

"Like Santanico," Richie explains. "I'm not going to let her turn you into a pawn."

"But isn't that what _you're_ doing too?" Kate asks. "Using me to get Seth on your side?"

"I'm not doing it anymore," Richie says, making Kate do a double-take at him in surprise; he stares forwards at the road. "Seth can come on his own. I'm not going to trick him into it."

"But..." Kate stutters. "But, wh _y_?"

"Because I'm not a snake," Richie says, finally looks at her and she sees something desperate there in his eyes, something that needs to be good instead of bad for once in so very long.

Kate remembers when she saw that happy little boy in Richie's  gaze just a few hours ago, and wonders if he wants to be like that again. She wonders if he became a monster not to have eternity, but instead something that made him feel like he belonged. It was the same for Scott. It was the same for Kate when she chose to go with Seth. A lot of people die looking for money, fame, immortality. Others simply die looking for a hand to hold.

"If Santanico wants your help, she can earn it the right way," Richie continues, and Kate realizes again that he's nothing more than a lost soul waiting for someone to find him, but she can't be that person-- maybe once she could have, but not anymore, not when she has become the result of his consequences.

"So why are we getting Scott then?" Kate asks. "I thought we wouldn't get him unless I helped you convince Seth to kill the Lords?"

"That deal's off," Richie says. "We're getting Scott because it's the right thing to do."

"It is?" Kate asks, wanting so desperately to believe that Richie isn't trying to trick her.

"Yeah," Richie says, sad smile at the corners of his mouth. "You shouldn't be without your brother, even if he is a monster now."

 

 

 

 


	7. A pretty penny.

 

 

They've been driving for two hours straight before Kate notices how pale Richie has become, the bruises shaping up under his eyes.

"What's wrong with you?" Kate asks, knees tucked up into her chest.

Richie let her pick the music, an old station from the district that plays American alternative music. He speaks over the lyrics of a Foals song, fangs licking out at his bottom lip. "I haven't fed for a while," Richie says.

" _Oh_ ," Kate answers, fingers tightening against the fabric of her jeans.

"Yeah," Richie says. "Before we go in for Scott, I'm gonna have to do that."

Kate doesn't reply right away, stares at the blacked out windshield in contemplation. She still finds the SUV very odd, how Richie has to look at a screen in the dashboard to navigate instead of at the actual road. At first she was afraid they would crash, but Richie assured her they'd be fine, that he's driven this vehicle a million times since he became a culebra almost nine months ago.

It's kind of funny, Kate thinks, how his life changed in so many simple ways thanks to the bigger picture. She wonders if he misses the sun on his face, watching it set and rise. She wonders if he misses the taste of real food-- how he described blood as being everything you want it to be, but the texture's always got to be the same, right? Doesn't he miss chewing-- Kate knows she would miss chewing, especially things like Laffy Taffy or beef jerky.

Sometimes Kate thinks that eternity wouldn't be worth giving up the little things that make you human. You'd still be able to walk, talk, dance, sure, but would it be the same? Killing culebras has allowed her to study them, the way they run on animal instinct and how their senses are heightened. What does it feel like to be able to see everything so sharp, smell someone bleeding from miles away? It has to be terrible, Kate imagines. Has to be daunting and confusing and stressful.

People aren't meant to be perfect like that.

They're not meant to live forever either, because, really, doesn't forever get boring after a while? There's only so much you can see, and once the world runs out you're left with nothing. History repeats itself with war and famine and disease. Everyone around you ages and dies while you live on, never changing. Kate couldn't stand that-- couldn't stand missing out on watching how she wrinkles or the way she shrinks with age. She couldn't stand never having the chance to have babies, or getting fat, or feeling pain like everybody else. She couldn't stand never having the chance to _die_ like a human being. Even if she wants to live right now, that doesn't mean she isn't ready for it someday, for going to whatever afterlife she's meant to and seeing her parents again.

"Would you have to kill someone to feed?" Kate asks, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"No," Richie says. "It's better to do that-- makes you fuller longer, but I wouldn't have to."

"So you've killed people to feed before?" Kate asks, already knows the answer to her question but asks anyways just to hear Richie say it out loud, have him confirm to her what he's really become.

"Yes," Richie says, won't meet her gaze. "But only the bad ones, Kate. I don't kill innocent people."

"How so?" Kate asks, his reply having shocked her.

Richie looks over at her then, eyes twinkling. "I go for murderers and rapists and thugs-- the bad guys the police don't catch. In my opinion, the world's better off without them anyways."

Kate blinks, wants to say that no human deserves to die but that would make her a hypocrite. Thus far she's only killed culebras aside from her father, but she remembers when she watched Freddie drive a sword through Tanner back at the Twister and was _glad_ for it. Knowing that a terrible, disgusting creep like that was gone from the world was kind of relieving, almost as if she'd witnessed someone doing God's work.

"But you _can_ feed without killing someone?" Kate asks, just for extra clarification.

"I did it with Seth," Richie shrugs.

Kate nods, remembers how Seth still has scars on his neck as evidence of Richie's words. "And as long as you don't pump any venom into a person's system, they won't turn, right?"

"Where are you going with this, Kate?" Richie asks, fingers tapping against the steering wheel.

Kate takes a deep breath, knows she's an idiot for saying this, but she also knows Richie has to feed and doesn't want to watch him kill to do it, even if that person is a bad one. "You can feed off of me," Kate says.

Richie slams his foot on the breaks, car coming to a violent halt in the middle of the highway-- it reminds her of Seth on that second day, when she broke down into hysterics and told him neither one of them should be alive, how he replied life's just funny that way.

" _What_?" Richie asks.

"You can feed off of me," Kate repeats, feeling herself begin to sweat despite the A/C being on full-blast. "We have enough time for me to recover from it if you don't take too much, and this way we won't have to worry about getting side-tracked with finding you another source. Plus, I don't wanna watch you kill someone."

"Do you understand what you're offering, Kate?" Richie asks. "I could just pump some venom into you and turn you, if I wanted. It'd be so, so simple."

"But you won't," Kate says, and she knows the statement is true. God help her, she _trusts_ Richie, at least in this. He doesn't have to help her get Scott for nothing in return, after all. At least if she lets him drink her blood she won't owe him anything, won't give him the chance to come back asking favors.

"What would Seth say?" Richie asks, and it's a cruel twist of a question, but Kate holds her ground.

"Seth isn't here," she says. "And I'm a big girl. I can make my own decisions. He isn't my _daddy_ after all."

"I'm sure he would be if you wanted him to," Richie smirks.

"Ew!" Kate says, reaching out to smack his chest playfully. "Stop being gross. Do you want to drink my blood or not?" The words together sound so wrong though, and she grimaces.

"Oh, I definitely do," Richie says, pulls the car over to the side of the road and puts the e-break on. "Are you sure about this though?"

"You're not going to lose control and kill me, right?" Kate asks.

Richie looks her straight in the eye and shakes his head solemnly. "No."

Kate nods again, is glad her hair's stayed half-way up at least so she doesn't have to waste time pulling it back. "Is it going to hurt?" she asks.

"I can make it so it won't," Richie says.

"How?" Kate asks, nerves gathering in the pit of her stomach at the upturn in his expression.

Richie doesn't answer right away, un-clicks his seat belt instead and maneuvers his long limbs over the console into the back seat. Kate watches with mild interest, bites her lip when he settles and pats the spot next to him. She holds her breath and waits for a moment before climbing over the console, figuring it's the only way he'll answer her when she sits next to him.

Wasting no time, Richie scoops her up as soon as she settles, straddles her body over his lap and has Kate gasping as her hips press flush into his own. "I can make it good by _touching_ you," Richie whispers hotly into her ear, making Kate's body heat up in embarrassed, excited shame.

"I'm not having sex with you," Kate says, goes to pull away but Richie's hands splayed full against her lower back keep her in place.

"Not sex, Kate," he says, eyes burning into hers. "Just touching."

Kate swallows nervously, slips her eyes closed and squeezes them tight. This doesn't need to be the big deal she's making it, she knows. It's not like when culebras feed on people they form a bond or something. This isn't a cheesy television show, it's real life, even if there are vampires in the picture. Richie's hungry, and Kate's a prime source to quench the need. All he has to do is bite her and take some blood, if she tells him to. So what if it hurts? Letting him touch her might make this more intimate than it needs to be, and she needs to just suck it up and bear it even if it equates to agony.

"No," Kate says then, letting her eyes open. "Just...just bite me."

"It _will_ hurt that way," Richie says.

"I'm a big girl," Kate says, same as earlier. "I've had worse."

Richie chuckles, reaches out to trail the back knuckle of his index finger down her neck, the nail of his thumb scraping her skin afterwards. "Can I take it from near your shoulder?"

"Does it make a difference?" Kate asks.

"Yeah," Richie answers. "The veins there aren't as large-- I'll have to work harder to get the blood, which means it'll be more difficult to take too much."

"Okay," Kate mumbles, reaches up to slip the side of her t-shirt down her arm. "Sorry if I smell bad. I haven't showered in like, almost three days."

Richie leans in, presses his nose to the crease between her arm and chest and inhales, making Kate squirm because it tickles. "You smell _amazing_ ," he says, and Kate blushes at the compliment. "Like sunshine and fear from perspiration. And sweet, too, but that's just you."

"Stop being a charmer," Kate laughs. "You've already got my go-ahead, so just go ahea-- _ah_."

She hisses when his fangs pierce her skin, sudden sharp ache but it's not any worse than that time she got her side ripped open, or the feeling of him cleaning the wounds that were on her opposite shoulder earlier. It's just very...awkward. She can feel his lower lip cupping over her collarbone where he's buried his fangs in the juncture between her shoulder and neck. Can feel the sucking motion of his mouth, the way his tongue drags against her skin to catch spare drops of blood.

Richie makes this sound in the back of his throat after a moment, something between a moan and a growl, followed by his hands moving off Kate's lower back to grasp her hips, his own pelvis jerking up into hers. She jumps, lets out a small squeak of surprise to feel him _hard_ against the crease of her thigh. He repeats the motion and she's about to push him off when suddenly the pain in her shoulder turns to that tingly-numb feeling like her cuts did earlier when his blood got into them, before suddenly it _burns_ , the heat spreading rapidly through her limbs.

It all accumulates at the juncture of her thighs where Richie's rubbing against her insistently, Kate's body on auto-pilot as she meets his thrusts, small sounds escaping her mouth as Richie groans again, one hand coming off of her hips to cup her right breast through her t-shirt, fingers tweaking her nipple through the fabric until Kate's head gets so fuzzy and hot she thinks she's going to pass out.

"Oh, oh _fuck_ ," Kate grits out, clenching her teeth and trying to make herself stop but she _can't_. "Richie-- _Richard_."

"That's it," Richie says, retracting his fangs for a moment and staring up at her with dark, hooded eyes and blood dripping down his mouth-- _her_ blood. "That's it, Katie. Just like that. Just _let go_..."

Kate looks back at him, at the deep blue of his eyes and suddenly she realizes how truly foreign they are, how she's used to eyes with the same shape but they're as amber as whiskey, not as blue as the sky.

_What would Seth say?_

Richie's words replay in her head over and over as she continues to move against him when he goes back to drinking from her, all the heat in her body burning to a fever pitch, pleasure dangling on a string in the pit of her stomach.

Seth would probably say she's being a moron, letting her hormones fuel her on like this. He'd say that this is his _brother_ , not him. He'd say that Kate's being irrational, being stupid, making the wrong choice just because she wants to feel good for once. Wants, wants, _wants_. Always wants.

"Stop," Kate gasps; she's had her hands curved into Richie's hair to tug and encourage him on while they've been moving together, but she _pulls_ now, rips him away from her and his teeth _tear_ , have her crying out in pain as blood spurts, soaking down the front of her shirt and splashing onto Richie's face and neck. "Oh God, oh God. Shit, _shit_."

"Fuck!" Richie replies, leans forwards to press a hand down on the wound and stifle the bleeding but it's not enough. "I tore too deep-- you have to let me heal it!"

"How-- _how_?!" Kate asks frantically, her body still swimming with left-over heat but it's fading out, replaced with the sharp sear of agony from her shoulder. He didn't take too much blood, but the wound makes up for it, staining down her shirt and pooling into the crease of her tummy where she's still folded up in Richie's lap before finally spilling down onto the hem of her jeans.

Her vision starts tunneling.

"You need my blood," Richie says, holding her gaze. "You have to take it, Kate."

"Okay," Kate says, too panicked to really think about it. "Yes, yes, _o-kay_."

Richie exhales, lifts a wrist up to his mouth and bites, the tangy smell mixed with her sudden vertigo making Kate want to vomit before suddenly Richie's pressing the wound to her mouth and Kate's drinking his blood because she has to. At first it tastes like rot, like the way culebra venom smells, but then it sort of tastes _good_ , not appetizing really, but not bad either. Kind of like a mix of liquor and old pennies.

After just a few moments she feels the pain in her body start to recede, her head no longer cotton candy sweet with arousal and blood-loss. Richie lets her drink for a few seconds more before pulling away, and Kate gasps after he's done, looks down and gapes as she watches the skin on her collar knit itself back together until there's nothing left to show she was hurt in the first place except coagulating blood.

"I'm sorry," Kate says, glancing up at Richie with wide, green eyes. "That was my fault."

"No," Richie sighs. "It was mine. You told me not to touch you but I got carried away."

"Am I going to turn into a culebra?" Kate asks, hands shaking.

Richie shakes his head. "Did you when your shoulder healed earlier?"

"You noticed that?" Kate asks.

"I could _smell_ it," he says. "When our blood mixes with a human's, it gives off this certain scent. It's how we claim a person as ours."

"Come again?" Kate asks, mouth hanging open in sudden anger and confusion.

Richie grins sheepishly like he's just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "When a culebra becomes... _attached_ to a human and wants to keep them, but doesn't want another culebra to feed from them, they exchange blood. This way others know the human is hands-off territory."

 _Oh God,_ Kate thinks. _We **are** in a cheesy television show._

"So you basically just peed on me like a dog," Kate says, trying her hardest not to start shaking all over in anger and keep it limited to her hands.

" _What_?" Richie says, looking disgusted.

"You marked me like a dog marking its territory!" Kate shouts, shoves off of him and tumbles over clumsily, ass landing on the foot boards of the back seat and that _hurts_ , but she's too mad to care.

"I had to!" Richie says. "You could've bled to death!"

"Did you cry on me on purpose?" Kate asks.

Richie stares down at her, opens his mouth to reply then closes it. Kate lets out a deep breath through her teeth, goes to get up and smacks his hands away when he tries to help. She shifts back over the console and plops into the passenger seat, crossing her arms over her chest and making a very sharp, very loud noise of frustration when she gets all sticky from her blood.

For a few minutes Richie just stays in the back seat before she hears him shifting and he sits down behind the wheel again, folding his long legs down so his feet touch the pedals. They both look at the blacked out windshield, no sound but the radio in the small space of the S.U.V. as well as Kate's angered breathing.

 _Seth would hate me,_ she thinks, which just serves to make her more mad. _Even if we're not together like **that** officially, I basically just cheated on him with his undead brother. Way to go, Kate._

"It's not that big of a deal," Richie tries to say then. "I only did it to make sure you're safe and that--"

Kate interrupts him by snapping, "Shut up, Richard."

Richie does, grimacing as he puts the vehicle back into drive and pulls onto the highway. They drive in silence for a few miles, Kate becoming more and more uncomfortable as the blood all over her continues to dry. She glances over at Richie and sees he still has it sprayed over his face and throat, the collar of his shirt soaked a deep red color by now.

"I need new clothes," Kate finally says. "Or a dip in a lake."

"There's a town coming up," Richie says distantly. "We can stop and you can get something."

"Do _you_ have money, because I don't," Kate says, past living humble because the dried blood on her chest itches.

"I have a lot of money, actually," Richie says.

"I thought Carlos and Narcisso got the bonds," Kate mutters.

"They did," Richie says. "But Santanico and I found other sources."

"Did you rob another bank?" Kate snorts, and she means it at a joke, but at Richie's answering silence her eyes flit over to him and her expression goes blank. "You _didn't_."

"Not a bank, exactly," Richie says. "But a museum. We got a nice piece of art, sold it on the black market, made a pretty penny."

"Why'd you do that?" Kate asks. "Wouldn't a bank have been easier?"

"We needed more than just the painting," Richie answers.

"Like what?" Kate asks.

"You'll find out," he answers.

 

 

The town they stop in isn't exactly a town, but more like a rest stop.

There's a few semis parked near a large gas station, a couple of cars and trucks too. Kate pulls down the visor on her side of the vehicle and frowns at her reflection, hair sex-mussed and body covered in sticky red. She would tell Richie to clean off his face and go in for her, but it's still daylight and he has to stay in the car.

"They have showers," Kate says, looking up at a sign on the gas station that posts ten minutes for thirteen pesos. "Can I take one?"

"Of course," Richie says, fishes into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet before handing her more than enough money for a shower and new clothes. "Get something to eat too, while you're in there. You haven't had anything the last two days and it'll help with the blood-loss... And maybe grab me a new shirt, please?"

"Sure," Kate says, takes the money and props open the passenger door, doesn't feel guilty when Richie recoils from the sun and hisses, skin sizzling until Kate slams the door shut.

There's a few drivers standing around at the gas pumps, eyes watching her with alarm as she strides into the gas station and up to the counter. The aging female teller turns to her and gapes, eyes wide and mouth hanging open in terror as she sees the way Kate's covered in blood.

" _Estás bien_?" the woman asks.

" _Estoy bien_ ," Kate answers, quickly coming up with a lie that the woman will hopefully believe so she won't call the cops. " _Mi amigo y yo nos llevamos una cabra en el lado de la carretera y yo quería ver si estaba bien, y por eso me parece tan malo. Lo siento por la alarma._ "

The woman nods, doesn't look like she quite believes Kate's story but isn't reaching for the phone or an emergency button to call for help or anything. Kate sighs in relief, slaps some cash on the counter and asks for a shower. The woman turns hesitantly and gets her a key, pointing towards the back where there are stalls set up for the patrons to wash off at.

" _Jabón_?" Kate asks.

" _Pasillo tres_." the woman answers, swallowing nervously.

" _Gracias,_ " Kate says, thinks about it for a moment and dishes out more money. " _Para el jabón y la ropa._ "

Again, the woman nods, watches as Kate flits over to aisle three and grabs a bar of soap plus a travel sized bottle of shampoo and a cheap, rough towel to dry off with. In second thought she also takes a toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste, because her teeth feel gross and fuzzy after having not been brushed for three days. There's also deodorant near, which she grabs a small stick of even though it's scented for men.

She moves down a few rows where she sees t-shirts hanging up, glancing over at the man already standing in the aisle looking at a shirt with the slogan ' _Fui a México y todo lo que conseguí era esta camiseta estúpida_.' pasted across its front.

Kate reaches across him for two in a medium and extra-large, rolls her eyes when he jumps back at seeing her bloody arm. "Are you okay, lady?" the man asks, obviously from the States.

"Fine," Kate snaps, takes the t-shirts and moves a little down the aisle until she finds a pair of cheaply made shorts in her size that have the Mexican flag printed over one leg.

She finds some cheesy women's underwear another aisle down, grabs a pair that have _Tuesdaya_ printed across the butt even though today is Saturday-- or maybe Sunday. Kate's kind of lost track in all the madness, doesn't care either way as long as she has clean underwear.

The key she has is for shower six, and she realizes by the timer at the door that she overpaid even after grabbing the clothes and toiletries because her time limit is twenty minutes instead of ten. She shrugs, figures that gives her longer to scrub off the blood as she unlocks the door and steps inside, finding the shower on the back wall and a small space for her to set her stuff on a shelf.

Cringing, she strips from her bloody clothes and leaves them in a wadded pile, mad that the blood ruined her favorite bra that Thomas, Talia and Amber helped her pick out when they went shopping all those months ago. With a frown, Kate grabs the soap, shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste and steps up to the shower stall, turning the hot water on high.

She gets in and brushes her teeth first, glad to get the plaque off of them. Then she scrubs herself clean of blood, watching as the water going down the drain turns from brown to clear. It reminds her of that first day after the twister, when she finally let herself cry for her daddy and Scott and everything she lost in that terrible, terrible place that broke her.

The thought makes her hands shake as she goes to undo the braids Santanico put in her hair, hands scooping down over the bruise Richie sucked into her neck. She touches her shoulder where there should be cuts, her collar where there should be torn flesh. Everything is baby-smooth though, _perfect_.

A sob rips out of her throat before Kate can stop it, her knees giving out and she sinks down to the ground, covering her mouth and trying to stifle the sudden noise coming out. Her eyes burn with tears and she sobs harder, body convulsing and mind racing, threatening to drive her insane.

Because what has she _done_?

First she let Richie offer her eternity, and then she played dress up with Santanico, let Richie bite her and claim her as his own. It hasn't even been three days since Kate last saw Seth, and already she's betrayed him a hundred times over. She wouldn't be surprised if he _hates_ her after this when he finds out everything that happened, if she ever even sees him again.

What if her and Richie don't make it out of trying to save Scott? What if Scott doesn't want to come with and turns them over to Carlos and Narcisso? They want Richie dead, want Kate turned into a monster.

 _But I'm already a monster,_ Kate thinks, remembers that first solo hunt she and Seth took and what that culebra said to her, how she's no different than Santanico before Kate smashed the monster's skull in and liked it.

Kate's dad always told her she's the kindest person he knows, that there isn't a malicious bone in his body. But that was before the Twister, before she turned into something dark and less than human. Not an hour ago she was thinking about how she doesn't want eternity, wants to be a person and not some evil undead thing. Yet she's still not any different than the creatures she kills-- she's so full of blood lust that it blinds her, makes her into this unfeeling mass of revenge.

Seth said that it won't be like this forever, that one day the hurting will stop, but at what price?

Kate continues crying for another couple of minutes, sobs finally calming when the water shuts off. She lifts herself from the floor, wipes off her face and begins to dry herself with the towel she bought. There's enough pins left over from when Santanico did her hair that Kate can put it back up so it doesn't drip everywhere, slops on some deodorant and shoves on her new clothes and her old shoes, trying not to linger on the blood still staining the laces.

She takes her old clothes and wads them up in the towel, stuffs the mass into a garbage can just outside of the shower cubby as well as her left-over toilitries, shampoo having gone untouched because she was too busy breaking down to wash out her hair. She keeps the second t-shirt though, because no matter how much she doesn't want to go back out to Richie now, she has no other options and he asked for a new shirt.

Back in the front of the store, Kate grabs a bottle of water and Coke out of one of the fridges; takes a few bags of snacks too, not really seeing what she's picking up. She goes back up to the counter and pays the clerk who's looking at Kate less wearily now that she's not covered in blood.

Kate tells the woman to keep the change, exits the store into the crisp sun and walks slowly back over to the S.U.V..

When she gets in Richie's got a cell-phone pressed to his ear, the blood from earlier cleaned off his face and neck as he talks rapidly in Spanish to the person on the other line and cringes when sunlight touches his skin before Kate shuts the door. Kate settles in her seat and catches snippets of what he's saying-- something about doing the right thing, being back soon.

After a minute he hangs up, glances over at Kate with her armful of snacks and t-shirt. "Was that Santanico?" Kate asks, tone as numb as she feels.

"Yeah," Richie says. "She's sending back-up to help us when we try and get out of where Scott's being held."

"Does she want something in return?" Kate asks, handing Richie the t-shirt.

Richie frowns at the print across the front of it, strips out of his suit jacket none the same and pulls off his dress-shirt, the wife-beater underneath still crisp enough he can just slip the t-shirt over that.

"No," he finally answers once settled. "I told her why I'm doing this and she understood."

"That's surprising," Kate mumbles, cracks her bottle of water and drinks half of it in one go, not having realized how thirsty she was until now.

"It actually isn't," Richie says as he puts the car back into drive. "She's a lot better than what you give her credit for, Kate."

"This coming from the man that says he doesn't want me to be like her," Kate answers, ignores Richie's sharp gaze and starts eating the snacks she bought. "But I don't want that to be my business."

 

 

" _Şaka yapıyor olması_ ," Marco says from where Amber's spiking his hair with gel. "I didn't sign up for this."

"We have to blend in," Talia says as she fixes her lipstick in a compact mirror. "No need to go in letting everyone know what we're doing, mate."

Seth rolls his eyes, finishes buttoning up his dress shirt before rolling the sleeves up to his elbows. He glances over at Gonzalez and finds the Ranger frowning, plucking at his too-tight t-shirt that Thomas brought up for him to borrow. Reneta came too, left the kids at home with a baby-sitter and brought Thiago his lucky knife that's easy to tuck into his boots.

It's nearly dusk by now, the whole gang dressing up to look the part for going clubbing. Seth wonders how Amber's going to be able to move in her skin-tight dress but doesn't complain because she looks pretty fucking good in it. Plus he's seen her kill a culebra in less than her underwear when a nest ambushed them at the motel they were staying back during a hunt in Guadalajara two months ago, and figures maybe the dress won't be a problem.

The plan they have is that Seth goes in alone like Carlos said and then the others will filter in as pairs, look like any regular civilians out to have a good time. Felipe's even going to go the extra mile and pretend he's high, wants another fix so that's why he came to a club that fronts for the cartel.

"You guys sure this is going to work?" Thomas ask from where he and Reneta are sitting on the couch, putting batteries into ear pieces for the rest of the team to use-- just because Seth can't go in wired doesn't mean the others can't.

"Unless one of us fucks up," Martin says from where he's sitting in a plush recliner and staring at the news posted on the television.

"Love your vote of confidence," Isaac says dryly, looking like the biggest twink Seth's ever seen in his life considering he's wearing cut-off shorts and a fish-net shirt. It's kind of funny, really, but Seth's too nervous to laugh.

"Everyone just needs to be cool," Seth finally says. "Gotta convince them good."

"Guess your con-man background comes in handy every now and then," Gonzalez remarks dryly, shoving his gun into the back waistband of his jeans.

"Shut the fuck up," Seth replies, not malicious, just answering.

Gonzalez snorts, lets Amber come over and fidget with his hair so he looks less like a father and more like a single man going out on the town. She smiles up at him, taps Gonzalez's nose when she's done and says his life is a lucky lady for having such a good-looking husband. For his part, the Ranger just shuffles uncomfortably and laughs, not used to the attention.

After everyone's finished dressing up, they all go to separate vehicles and get ready to drive to the club. Reneta comes over to Seth before he leaves though, her and Thomas planning to check out of the resort house for everyone and drive back home afterwards.

"Be careful," the woman says, fixing the collar of Seth's shirt. "You get our Katie back, but don't die in the process. Marisol's birthday is in two weeks, and she expects you to be there and give her presents."

"I'll be there," Seth says, smiling softly because Reneta and Thiago's six-year-old, Marisol, is his favorite out of their kids. She's quiet but bossy and full of big, imaginative ideas, and it reminds him of a younger, female version of Richie no matter how much it hurts to admit.

"You better," Reneta says.

Seth hugs the woman goodbye just in case, gets into the car and shuts the door. The others all nod to him from their respective seats before he drives off, starts counting down from two-thousand before they all leave and follow after him.

By the time he gets to the club night has fallen, the last rays of sunlight peaking over the horizon. Seth parks on the street, looks at the busy people walking all around him. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, hoping that this is all going to work. That Kate's here and he's going to get her back and they're going to be okay.

 _Please don't let her be a monster_ , he prays, and he's not so much as praying to God as to anyone who will listen. _Please let her still be **Kate**._

He gets out, walks over to the line formed outside of the club and strides up to the bouncer with fake confidence. The man is obviously a culebra, Seth already knows. He's got that snake-like gait, eyes sharp and mouth curved with venom. When Seth tries to walk past him the bouncer puts a hand out, fingers digging into Seth's chest.

"I'm here to see Carlos," Seth says, and even if the culebra doesn't speak English, he recognizes his boss's name, lets Seth past without any further trouble.

Inside the club is buzzing, bass of the music thumping, making Seth's body go on edge. The lights are like the ones in the Twister, and the place smells like sweat and sex and danger. He holds his shoulders high anyways, goes up to the bar and calls the tender over to him.

" _Qué puedo hacer por ti?_ " the bartender asks.

"Carlos," Seth says, watches the kid's eyes flash in recognition before he motions for Seth to follow him.

They go into a side hall, and before they disappear into the darkness Seth looks over his shoulder, sees Amber and Gonzalez nod at him where they're already dancing among the crowd. He smirks back, is glad Amber wore that dress because _of course_ the bouncer let her in the minute he saw her, looking like vampire bait and all. Gonzalez was lucky enough to be on the babe's arm and get in with association.

The hall leads down to a set of double-doors that take them through a V.I.P. lounge. People glance up but pay no heed, too busy fucking through their clothes on the fancy couches or doing lines of coke. At the back of the lounge is another set of doors, and Seth holds his breath as the bartender unlocks them, motions Seth to go through. He steps into the waiting darkness, flinches when the doors slam shut and lock behind him.

For a moment he waits, and then suddenly torches along the walls spark to life. "Fucking Temple of Doom as always," Seth mutters, follows the line of the hall in front of him to a steep staircase.

As he goes down more torches light, and from what he can see of the walls it's like he's in the Twister all over again, Maya carvings staring back of him in chunky markings. The steps feel slippery beneath his feet, and the deeper he goes the less this place starts to smell like a club and more like a temple, like mildew and mold and old stone and blood. He wonders what the club was built on-- if it's been here as long as the Twister.

Finally the stairs end, and Seth's left in a big, open room with red curtains swaying against the walls. "Where you at, Carlito?" Seth calls, trying to stamp down his nerves. "I thought we had a deal!"

"Haven't you learned by now that deals with Carlos never work out, brother?"

Seth spins, all of the breath rushing out of his lungs as he comes face-to-face with Richie, his long lost brother stepping out of a side-door in the room with Kate in tow, their hands linked together and both of them soaked in blood.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering, the Foals song playing at the beginning of the chapter was Spanish Sahara. And the music in the club was Cayendo by Deorro.
> 
> Also, because I still think my Spanish is downright offensive, the story Kate told the gas station clerk was that she and her friend hit a goat on the side of the road and she tried to check to see if it was okay, which was why she was all bloody and stuff.
> 
> And I wanted to say thank you to everyone who's kept reading and given support. It means so much! Thank you!


	8. A pulp fiction.

 

 

“So you want to tell me where we're going again?"

Richie glances over, his face impassive as he takes in the expectant quirk of Kate's brow, acknowledges the way she's trying to stir up nonchalant conversation. "Monterrey," he says.

"Right. Freaking Monterrey," Kate says, scowling. "Why the hell is Scott in that shithole again?"

"It's a nice city," Richie fires back.

"If you like tourists and crappy food," Kate says.

"It's better than fucking Tolcayuca," Richie says, turning the conversation from nonchalant to deadly with one word.

Kate stiffens in her seat, stares at the dashboard and blinks. Because not _once_ in her entire interactions with Richie and Santanico has she told them where she and Seth and the others live.

She tried to keep that part to herself, some sliver of hope inside of her saying Richie hadn't figured out the exact town after he said he didn't know the culebra that had come to warn Kate about Carlos and Narcisso. So Richie and Santanico knew that Kate and Seth were together and meeting up with Freddie near the border-- big deal. Anyone can listen to hunter gossip, monitor a call if they know where a person is staying, and it's especially easy to track down the address of a Texas Ranger. Plus Kate called Freddie from Martin's house in Mexico City, not from her own in Tolcayuca, so even the backwards address wasn't right.

"How did you know where we live?" Kate asks, her tone blank unlike the sudden violated rage she feels swirling up into her chest.

Because that home is _theirs_ \-- her and Seth's, away from all this madness. They've never had to hunt in their town because the culebras stay clear. Even that first hunt had been out in the countryside, away from the people Kate sees on a day-to-day basis. In Tolcayuca Kate's known as a normal girl, a waitress at Tyrone's Diner, that polite young lady who lives with a man old enough to be her dad but isn't her dad, also isn't her lover either despite what Señora Martinez wishes would happen. Kate's known as the girl who's friends with the locals, makes weekly trips to the market, attends the _Bar Antiguo_ every Saturday night for Felipe Tevino's shift.

Tolcayuca is theirs and she didn't want the monsters to have it.

Richie scoffs, takes a turn that leads them down a stretch of highway towards Monterrey, towards Scott. "It isn't hard to keep tabs on someone, Kate," Richie says. "I knew you left with Seth; I knew you guys started hunting culebras; I knew when you went into Mexico City and figured all this shit out."

"Yet somehow you didn't know I've Frenched your brother," Kate says, wants to laugh maliciously at the way Richie takes in a sharp breath, his fingers gripping into the steering wheel hard.

Despite the intimate way Richie touched her back when she let him use her like his own personal vending machine, Kate still knows all of this is about something bigger than just the two of them. She still knows that Richie is jealous as hell over her and Seth's relationship, that he's probably only taking her to get Scott because he thinks it might impress Seth when Kate relays the story to him of how she got her brother back ties-free. She still knows that while Richie might actually like her like _that_ , it'll never come close to the love he has for Seth, not even if Richie does end up turning her into a culebra and stays with her for eternity.

Kate's not an idiot-- she's understood from the start that nothing is ever going to come between the love the Gecko brothers have for each other, not even herself.

"It's not like I _watched_ you together, or anything," Richie finally says, blows out a breath and shakes his head. "But I guess it doesn't surprise me."

"It surprises me," Kate says, taking a sip from the Coke she bought back at the rest stop. "Who knew I'd end up with a thief when less than a year ago, I was with a church boy?"

"I did," Richie says.

"But you thought it would be _you_ ," Kate sneers, wants to be mean.

"I did," Richie says, no emotion in his voice. "But I was wrong."

"You're with Santanico anyways," Kate laughs dryly. "It's not like you _care_ anymore."

"Don't fucking _say_ that!" Richie snaps, voice rising to a shout in an instant-- it makes Kate flinch, pressing over into the passenger door and away from him. "I fucking care, okay? I care _too much_."

" _It's not that I don't want you that's the problem. It's that I **do**._ "

"Because I'm with Seth?" Kate whispers.

Richie nods. "And that you're with _anyone_."

"Is that why you marked me?" Kate asks, going back to when he gave her his blood. "Because you want to own me?"

"I don't want to _own_ you," Richie says.

"You want to screw me, then," Kate says, because surely Richie _cannot_ mean he wants anything from her more than shallow surfaces to get back at Seth.

"No," Richie says, looks over at her and it's kind of terrifying, all the things Kate can see in his gaze. "I want to protect you. I want to _love_ you."

"You're incapable of love," Kate says, trying to rebuff what he's just said because she can't let it settle in, she just absolutely _can't_. "You're a monster."

Richie laughs, but it's completely without humor. "I may not have a heart," he says. "But I felt that."

 

 

 

So yes, Kate didn't want to think about it, but suddenly the evidence is there that Scott's staying at _another_ night club-- and, _God_ , does Kate absolutely hate that.

It's still daytime outside when they get there, Richie explaining that the place is one of the last clubs on the Barrio Antiguo strip that's still open as he parks on the street out front. He says that it heads for the local drug cartel, a business both Carlos and Narcisso are intimately familiar with. There's a network of caverns under this particular spot, not ancient Maya ruins like at the Twister, but a labyrinth of store rooms and torture chambers that were built in the 1970's for the cartel to work out of.

"That's where Scott will be," Richie says, taking out a pack of cigarettes-- the brand is the same as the kind he smoked when Kate first met him, and she thinks it's kind of funny that he held onto one of his old habits in his new life.

"Can I have one of those?" Kate asks for nostalgia's sake.

Things have been tense between them since he told her he may not have a heart, but her words of him being incapable of love still hurt. They've only shared a few sentences since, one about how Kate needed him to pull into a gas station so she could pee, another about arguing which route was the best to take to Monterrey. Kate said back roads to go unnoticed, and Richie said highway so they'd make it there quicker. In the end, Kate won, but it's been nothing but silence besides that.

Richie smiles, a real, genuine smile as he hands her a cigarette and lights it with his Zippo, tension breaking. "You inhale," he says after a moment, watching Kate blow out the smoke from her nose.

"One of my teammates, Talia, smokes like a fiend. I've had a few with her after hunts," Kate shrugs. "She said I was wasting her cigarettes by not inhaling, so I learned how not to do that."

"Just don't get addicted. These things will kill you," Richie chuckles.

Kate pulls a face at him, scrunching up her nose and sticking her tongue out. Richie laughs again, flicks ashes into a tray that pops out of the S.U.V.'s dashboard beneath the air conditioner controls. Kate does the same, her throat burning from the next drag she takes because Talia smokes lights while Richie smokes what can only be called equivalent to hards.

"Red Apple," Kate says, inspecting the pack. "Where do you get these? I haven't heard of them before."

"You can get 'em anywhere," Richie shrugs, filter between his teeth. "It's not like they're a pulp fiction, or something."

Kate giggles, takes another puff and looks up at the building before them through the dashboard monitor. Since it's daylight out everything looks completely ordinary-- there are people walking down the street, tourists and locals alike. A mother holds her daughter's hand and the little girl skips, a blue balloon tied to her wrist so that it won't get carried away with the wind.

For a moment Kate remembers when she was young and had a similar experience. She was seven and had gone to a friend's birthday party, earning one of the balloons as a party favor. Instead of blue, hers was red, and when Kate's momma had come to pick her up and walk her home she hadn't tied the string to Kate's wrist. Instead Kate let go of the balloon on accident just a block from their house, and started crying.

"My balloon, mommy!" Kate cried, trying to jump up and reach the string but it was already gone.

"Oh, honey," her momma said, leaning down to Kate's level and bracing her hands on Kate's tiny shoulders. "It's okay. We can get you a new one."

"But I want _that_ one!" Kate sobbed, pointing high to where her balloon was already above the nearby houses.

Her momma smiled sadly, tucked a strand of hair behind Kate's ear. "Sometimes the things we want can't last, Kate. You have to let them go."

"How?" Kate asked, lower lip trembling.

"You just do it," her momma said, and she seemed so wise to Kate then, so beautiful and so strong. "It hurts, but you have to let them go."

Kate made herself stop crying after that, watched the balloon get farther and farther away as they walked home. She and Scott looked out her window that night and tried to find it, but couldn't. Kate remembered her momma's words and told herself it was in outer space, that it was on an adventure and even though she was sad it was gone, it was okay, that she had to let it go.

Blinking, Kate glances back over at Richie, at the smoke swirling out of his lips in waves. She squints at him and he just looks so _human_ , so vulnerable. There's freckles on his cheeks, a cowlick in his hair. His muscles aren't perfectly defined, his teeth aren't perfectly straight, and the t-shirt she got him is a little too big in the waist. Even his shoes have dust on them, speckled pattern traveling up his pants leg.

 _I still see him the way I first say him,_ Kate thinks, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. I can't let go of that boy with the glasses and the kind touch.

She wonders when she got like this, when she became that typical female heroine who holds onto the past too tight. She wonders when she let herself get eaten up by grief and attach to anything that was there to console her through it. Because even though Richie has scared her from the start, he's always been comforting, in his own way. He's always treated Kate like an adult, not some dumb kid who doesn't understand anything about the way the world works.

Even Seth didn't do that at first, when he gave her and her family a lecture about sucking it up and how he _had_ to do the things he did to them, like kidnap them and drag them to a vampire strip bar in the middle of Mexico, to find his El Rey. Richie never looked at it like that-- he told Kate he wanted her to feel like she belonged, that they were both in the Twister for a reason, for a _purpose_.

 _But he's not Seth,_ Kate tells herself feebly, smoke drowning her lungs.

It's true that Seth has treated her like a child before, but it's even more true he's also treated her like a woman, like a _partner_. He's taken care of her, picked up the broken pieces the Twister left them in. Richie may be a comfort, but he was never actually _there_ for her.

Not like Seth.

Richie's never held Kate in the night when she wakes up screaming from a nightmare, hasn't gone out at two in the morning to get her aspirin because she's having period cramps. Richie's never watched the sun set or rise with her for the sole purpose of simply watching, or laid in bed all day eating junk food and talking about stupid, meaningless things like high school heydays or teenage antics gone wrong. Richie's never looked at Kate the way Seth looks at her-- not like she's some unfathomable, bright dream, but instead a human being with vices and flaws and tender, broken skin.

Kate knows that bruises fade, but nothing is ever actually healed; it seems like Richie doesn't.

"Why do you love Seth?" Kate asks then, watches as Richie's face turns up in shock at the erratic form of her question.

"Because he's my brother," Richie says.

"That's not good enough," Kate answers.

Richie replies with a sneer, posture rigid and hands clenched, cigarette burning out in his ice-cold palm. "Why do _you_ love him?" Richie challenges, wants her to say something poetic, probably, something more than a few nondefinitve words, like she's trying to one-up him even though she isn't-- she just wants the answer to mean something more than blood ties.

"Because he's my home," Kate says, and that's good enough.

Richie sighs then, leans back in his seat and looks up at the roof of the S.U.V. tiredly. "He was mine once, too, y'know?"

"You killed your father for him," Kate says, watches Richie swallow nervously before nodding. "You called it love."

"What else can you call it?" Richie asks, and he isn't defensive so much as completely without an answer for himself, words just left out there in the open like vomit splattered on Kate's feet.

"Desperation," Kate says, puts out her cigarette in the ashtray before pressing her hand to Richie's cheek, leaving nicotine stains on his skin-- he leans into the touch softly, eyes settling shut. "Surviving."

"You killed your dad," Richie whispers, making Kate's chest hurt with old wounds. "Was that love?"

Kate shakes her head. "It was mercy."

Richie's eyes open slowly, endlessly sad blue that Kate could drown in, her entire life turned upside down like a ship flippin' over in the ocean. "And if Seth were to be like me? If he were to ask you to end it, would you kill him?"

"I would," Kate says, and she knows the words are true.

"Are you some kind of angel of death?" Richie asks, and he looks almost like he's in awe, reaching up a hand of his own to touch it softly against the pulse in Kate's throat. "I never saw you like the others-- Santanico showed me when people were bad, but not with you. With you I only ever saw the pain, the _blood_."

"I'm not an angel," Kate says, takes her hand away from his face and settles it into her lap even though Richie's still touching her neck. "I'm just a girl who wants the hurting to stop."

"How do you make that happen?" Richie asks.

"Didn't you make it stop by becoming what you are?" Kate answers.

"No," Richie says, and he looks so _young_ , like a little boy crying over a lost red balloon. "I thought that's what would happen, but it only made it worse."

"Then I don't have an answer," Kate says.

Richie sighs, stops touching her and puts his hand on the steering wheel. "I wish you did," he says.

 

 

As soon as the sun's half-way down on the horizon, Richie says it's time to act.

He gets out of the car and in a flash is opening Kate's door for her. She just stares at him, wants to laugh at the way he's acting like a gentleman. They haven't spoken for the past two hours, listening to the radio and using up the last of his cigarettes instead. It wasn't tense this time so much as hopeless, hurt and loss settling deep into Kate's bones as she thought about everything that's happened since her mother died, since two con-men and a preacher's family walked into a bar and got their lives torn apart.

"We're gonna go in through the back," Richie says, settling a hand over her waist and ducking through remaining patches of sunlight. "There's a staircase that leads down into the tunnels there."

Kate nods, tries to appear cool and casual as they bypass the line forming at the club's front door, act like they're going into a nearby shop and duck around the side of the building when no one's looking. A small alley leads into a back lot, crickets chirping to warn of the impending darkness and gravel crunching under Kate's feet.

The door they need is being monitored though-- Richie pulls her behind a parked car and they peer through the windows at the culebra on guard duty. He looks strong, dangerous and ready for a fight. Kate swallows, feels defenseless without the stakes and knives Santanico's lackeys stripped off her somewhere between the panderia and the hotel, like she's missing vital parts.

"Stay here," Richie says after a moment.

Kate begins to protest, but he's already gone. She watches as one minute the guard's standing at the door impassively and the next Richie's on him, two snakes attacking each other. The motions are so quick they're like a blur, Kate's vision unable to catch anything solid until she sees Richie grab the guard around the neck and tear his head off, blood spraying everywhere.

When it's over Kate simply breathes out slowly, stands up and goes to Richie when he motions that it's safe. The t-shirt she got him is ruined now, blood and bits of tendon sticking to its purple front. The same gorey matter is in Richie's hair, on his face, and leaking out of his mouth.

"You _bit_ him?" Kate asks, looking at the dust under her feet, the only thing left of the culebra's actual body.

"I was still hungry," Richie shrugs. "We taste like shit to each other, but whatever. Man's gotta eat."

Kate scoffs, rolls her eyes as Richie reaches out and pops the back door open, sound of a lock breaking. He doesn't motion for her to go first like a gentleman this time, takes the lead himself. The door opens up into a dark hallway, and when it swings closed behind them Kate jumps as everything goes black. Something solid grabs her hand though, the familiarity of Richie's palm wrapping around her own.

They make it several feet before she hears the hissing, and suddenly Richie's hand is replaced with a shape she'd know anywhere-- a stake.

Kate grips it tight, hallway flaring up with light as torches on the walls suddenly illuminate. She spots the culebras about ten feet ahead, eyes yellow and fangs dripping with venom as they charge. There's four, and Richie wastes no time in taking one out the moment he's withing grasp, tearing the monster's chest where his heart should be and crushing the thing into dust.

Another culebra side-steps the scene, comes after Kate but she's ready for it. This is her element after all-- being with Seth means she's not good at words that count like the ones she shared with Richie in the car, but actions, those she's great at.

She dodges around the culebra, brings her foot up and kicks him in the sternum. The monster stumbles back, not expecting such a small girl like her to be a scrapper. Kate takes advantage of that like Seth taught her to, strikes out with her fist and lets the culebra catch it before using her other hand to drive the stake home. The culebra crumbles into dust before it even has the chance to hurt her, and Kate takes a deep breath, adrenaline flooding her system in buckets.

Richie's already on the third monster, grappling and hissing as the fourth attacks Kate. She raises the stake and is about to strike but this one's quick-- knocks the weapon away before back-handing Kate to the floor. Her vision swims when she hits the ground and she can distantly hear Richie calling out her name, distraction immediately replaced by the culebra climbing on top of her and trying to sink his teeth into her throat.

Kate cries out angrily, reaches forwards and drags her nails over the monster's face, taking out a chunk of flesh. The culebra howls, reels back and gives her enough of an open to get her knees up to her chest, brace them around his head as she strikes out with her elbows at the meeting of joints in his arms like Talia said to do when in this position, collapses the culebra's support system enough that when she twists her legs to the side, he goes flying under her. Kate rights herself on his chest, jabs out hard and fast with the right-hook that Seth taught her and lands her knuckles into the culebra's nose, cartilage shattering.

" _Puta_!" the culebra snarls. " _Voy a follarte a matar por esto_!"

Still punching, Kate takes no heed to his words. She remembers the trick Felipe taught her after showing her how to fire a shotgun without getting knocked over from the recoil-- that if you can get a culebra at the right angle, you can collapse their throat like it's a normal person's. Kate rears up her arm and brings her elbow down into the windpipe of the culebra beneath her, smiles when she hears him gurgle in pain as his body start spasming violently underneath of hers. Even if he doesn't need to breathe, she knows it still hurts like a bitch.

"Kate!" By now Richie's done with the other culebra, coming to Kate's side and pulling her off of the monster beneath her before she elbows the culebra in the throat again just to be malignant.

"What'd you do that for?" Kate asks, looking down at the culebra who's still trying to regain his composure, hands clutching at his concave neck.

"I didn't realize you've turned into a fucking _animal_ ," Richie says, right before he brings his foot down on the culebra's head, effectively smashing the monster's skull in, brains spattering out onto the concrete floor.

"Look who's talking," Kate murmurs as Richie reaches down and twists his hand into the culebra's chest where his heart should be, crushing until the monster crumbles into dust.

"Yeah, well," Richie says, slopping the blood and bites of gristle on his hand towards the floor. "I'm immortal. You're not. You could've gotten hurt."

"I'm a hunter, remember," Kate laughs. "I do this for a living."

"You're better at it than Santanico and I thought," Richie says, and he sounds kind of _proud_ , and it makes Kate feel useful and strong. "But also messier."

Kate blinks, glances down at herself and sighs when she realizes she's, once again, covered in blood. Only this time there's bits of flesh and vampire dust mixed in, making her look like a Monet of gore. Sighing, she wrings out her t-shirt a little and lets it flop back onto her chest with a wet _plop_ , annoyed that she took a shower for nothing, apparently. Even her shorts are ruined, the Mexican flag print on them completely eclipsed by red.

"So what now?" Kate asks after a moment, finding Richie's gaze in the dark as the torches go out as suddenly as they came on.

"Follow me," Richie says.

He takes her hand again, both of their fingers slicking together from all of the blood on them. Kate follows him down the rest of the hallway to the top of a large staircase, the smell of rot coming from below. She swallows when the scent hits her, memory of the Twister in the back of her mind.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Kate asks.

"Yes," Richie says. "We might be outnumbered, but obviously that's no problem."

"But what if Scott is _with_ Carlos, in the same room? What if Carlos or Narcisso _bite_  me?" Kate asks.

"I won't let that happen," Richie says, his gaze so intense Kate has to look away. "Now, come on, let's get your brother."

Kate nods, hopes once again that Scott actually _wants_ to come with her as they begin to descend down the staircase.

When it ends Kate finds her footing on the flat ground now beneath her, jagged edges familiar. There's more light in here from kerosene lamps on end tables, and she can see that they're in a wide room covered in red curtains, old blood on the couches and rugs strewn about. If Kate looks hard enough she can see symbols carved into the walls, ones that look like those in the Twister.

"I thought you said this place isn't a Maya ruin," Kate whispers, pressing into Richie's back out of fear.

"It isn't," he says. "It's just a look-alike because Carlos is a poser."

And the way he says it, using such a modern word in such an ancient looking setting, Kate can't help but laugh. It's a tiny slip, the sound making both of them pause as Richie turns to smile at her. She looks up at him, at the amusement in his eyes and she realizes, _holy shit_ , they worked like a team back there. They worked like her and Seth, like they were _made_ to fight together.

Kate stops laughing, throat closing up as Richie's smile fades into something different, something more. The hand not wrapped around hers comes up to touch Kate's throat like earlier in the S.U.V., only he doesn't press into her pulse, just lays his palm there softly. Kate's gaze flickers from his to his mouth, the way he licks his lower lip softly, like an after thought to something else, something dangerous.

"Did you mean it?" Richie asks, torment in his tone as he leans in. "Did you mean it when you said that you think I'm incapable of love?"

"I don't know," Kate says honestly, her body burning against his.

"I don't want you to have meant it," Richie says, and he's so close, so very, very close, his mouth just a breath away from hers. "I want to show you that you don't mean it, Kate. I want you to _see_."

Kate swallows, lets her eyes slipped close because she's powerless to stop this, has been powerless since the start. There's something about Richie that's always put a spell on her, always made her unable to control her own body. He's like an infection, racing through her veins straight to her heart and head, making everything sticky sweet like fairground candy. He is sugar and she is buzzed, only he doesn't smell sweet, but like smoke and blood and broken promises. She's acutely aware his mouth hovering above hers, the solid grip he has on her to keep her there, as if she'd try to move away in the first place.

She feels the ghost of his mouth press into hers and she _wants_ \--

\--but just before he actually kisses her, they hear a familiar voice calling out from the next room.

"Where you at, Carlito? I thought we had a deal!"

Kate breaks away from Richie like he's just stabbed her, entire body coming back to reality and _oh my God_ , it's _Seth_. The person yelling in the other room is _Seth_ , right there, just a wall away, a tangible, _real_ thing and no longer the weight hanging over Kate and Richie's heads.

_What would Seth think?_

Kate looks away in shame, her hand still clenched inside of Richie's so she's helpless to follow when he yanks her forwards not a moment after she turns away from him, opens the door on the north wall of the room and steps into a hollowed out space, Kate following behind like a loose string.

"Haven't you learned by now that deals with Carlos never work out, brother?" Richie asks.

Seth turns just in time to see Richie and Kate emerge completely from the room they were just in, their hands still linked and bodies covered in blood.

"Richie?" Seth asks, and at the proximity of his voice Kate can't help but look up, ache swelling in her gut. She watches as Seth takes in his brother, all the pain he's been hiding for months and months there in his eyes for her to see. And then the pain shifts to rage, and suddenly Seth's lunging forwards, throwing himself at Richie. "You son of a bitch! How _could_ you?!"

Kate jumps back as Seth takes Richie to the ground, pounding fists into his brother's face and Richie just _takes_ it.

"Is Santanico working with Carlos again, _huh_?" Seth asks. "What'd you fuckin' do to Kate, you stupid shit? What. Did. You. _Do_?!"

"Seth!" Kate says as she watches him smash Richie's teeth in, knows this about more than just her. " _Seth_!"

Seth looks up mid-strike, Richie turning away and coughing up blood, face instant to heal itself now that he's not being attacked. Kate glances away from that, meets Seth's gaze and sees the desperation there. Because, yes, he's mad, but he's also over the hill with grief and confusion. This is the first time he's seen Richie in almost _nine months_ , since Richie left him for what Seth thought Richie considered a better companion.

Seth admitted that to Kate once, how he thought he wasn't good enough and Richie was always waiting for something better; she hadn't been able to find the words to tell him then that he's wrong, still doesn't know what to say.

"Seth," Kate says again. "Oh, Seth. I'm so _sorry_."

"Sorry-- why are you sorry, princess?" Seth asks; he stands up, takes a few steps towards her. His hand extends, knuckles split from where he was punching Richie. He touches a strand of Kate's hair, almost like he can't believe she's here. "Are you...?" he starts.

"I'm human," Kate whispers.

Seth makes a sound that's something like a sob, throws his arms around her and presses her close into his body, doesn't care that she's getting blood all over his nicest shirt. Kate hugs him back, eyes squeezing shut as she breathes in the familiar scent of him, warmth radiating from his skin into her own. His fingers splay over her back and shoulders, something she's oh so used to and this feels like coming home.

But then she opens her eyes, sees Richie laying there on the ground looking over at them, his expression heart-broken.

Sighing, Kate pulls away from Seth, setting her hands on his biceps and holding him in place. "Why are you here?" she asks.

"Carlos said he was the one that took you. He told me Scorsese, Kate-- he knew the code and I thought he had you." Seth says, glances over at Richie and blinks as his brother stands, wiping blood off his mouth. "But he was lying, wasn't he?"

"Afraid so," Richie says. "He isn't working with us. He's working _against_ us. Scorsese is a _terrible_ code word, by the way."

"Carlos and Narcisso are the ones that want the true hunters dead, Seth," Kate says, bypassing all the code mishap and trying to explain the important things as quickly as she can before someone walks in on them, before they get _caught_ or worse. "They want to turn me because I'm with you, because you and Richie _are_  the true hunters. Anyone can kill Santanico, but only you guys can kill the Nine Lords like she wants."

"What do you mean _we're_ the true hunters?" Seth asks.

"Maya Twins, Seth," Richie chuckles. "We're the _originals_."

"Shut up, Richard," Seth says. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"We're here to get Scott," Kate says, Seth's eyebrows raising to his hairline in shock at her answer. "Originally Santanico tried to bargain with me about it, said if I got you to work for her she'd help me get Scott back."

"So you took the deal?" Seth says, swallowing in sudden anxiety.

"Of course not," Kate answers.

Seth's entire body settles in relief. "Then what--" Seth starts.

"I brought her," Richie interrupts, Seth blinking over at him. "It was the right thing to do."

"Since when did you become a _vampire_ that does the right thing?" Seth sneers.

Richie shrugs. "Kate has a way of swaying people, you know that."

Seth looks back at Kate then, eyes wondering over her. She's suddenly infinitely grateful that she didn't kiss Richie, that she has one less betrayal to tell Seth about. Because she's going to tell him everything-- about how she got the bright bruise on her neck, her time with Santanico, the way she let Richie feed on her and vice versa. She's going to tell him that she's sorry, that if he hates her she understands.

But not yet.

Now she has to focus on getting out of here, because suddenly she _gets_ it.

"We have to leave, now," Kate says.

"I thought you came here for Scott," Seth answers.

"And you thought you came here for Kate," Richie says, eyes focusing in as he picks up onto what Kate has. "Fuck. It was a trick. All of it."

"What?" Seth asks, head whipping back and forth between Richie and Kate. "Mind enlightening me to the situation here, Wonder Twins?"

"Carlos knew Richie and I were coming for Scott," Kate says, hands beginning to shake. "That's why he called you saying he had me. To get you and Richie in one place."

"But _why_?" Seth asks.

"It's no use killing one Maya Twin," Richie answers. "There's still another in his place. But this way, this way we're _both_  ready to be dispatched like pigs for slaughter."

"Then why didn't you let Kate _call_ me and tell me she was okay?" Seth asks.

Richie looks at Kate, Kate looks at Richie, both of them groping for an answer. "Um..." Kate says. "We didn't think about that?"

" _Shit_." Seth says, glances back towards the staircase behind him Kate's just now noticing, too busy taking in Seth and the fact he's really _here_ to take stock of the rest of the room. "The others are all upstairs. We have to get to them, we've got to _go_."

"Oh, but you just got here."

Kate, Richie and Seth turn their head simultaneously, eyes focusing in on a door opening at the other side of the room, Carlos Madrigal stepping out like a freaking Calvin Klein model, expensive gray suit and golden eyes.

"Why not stay a while?" he asks, just as Kate Fuller and the Gecko brothers are ambushed by an army of culebras.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	9. A little daunting.

 

 

She's standing on a dock, looking out over a clear blue lake and she doesn't know why she's here.

Kate takes a step forwards, looks down over the ledge and sees pebbles sparkling like stars through the water below. When she glances up the sky's in fractured shreds, sun setting or maybe rising on the horizon. Everything smells like fresh life, like honeysuckle and dewy grass and mountains. There's birds singing and cicadas croaking, the sound of some kind of dog howling from the forest behind her.

"What..." Kate starts.

"It's a little daunting, right?"

Kate turns, gapes when she sees the girl at her back-- dark skin and bright hair. She's the girl from the market the other day, the _vampire_ who approached Kate and tried to warn her about Narcisso and Carlos wanting to turn her.

The girl is as beautiful as Kate remembers, big brown eyes and soft curls. She's got on a dress that looks very old, yet shining new. It's white and offsets her freckles, the birthmark on her shoulder in the shape of a cross. When Kate squints she can see blood on the girl's finger-tips, but it's tawny and dried, copper like an old penny.

"I thought you didn't speak English," Kate says stupidly, hands clenching into fists.

"I do in your dreams," the girl says. "It's easier to communicate like this."

"My dreams?" Kate asks, her head fuzzy. "I'm not awake?"

"You're in the clutches of Narcisso and Carlos," the girl smiles sadly, and suddenly everything comes rushing back and Kate's legs wobble, body sinking down onto the edge of the dock, palms flat against old wood.

And then the dock morphs into stone, and the dream settles into darkness. Kate blinks, stares around her at the Mayan runes and ancient pillars. There's flames simmering in old metal bowls risen from the floor, decadent fruits strewn out across a long table with flies and maggots swarming in its masses. The smell of life turns to one of death, and Kate holds back a gag.

"What the hell is going on?" she asks.

The girl shrugs. "You _see_ like Richard does," she says. "And yet you don't."

"I don't understand what you mean," Kate whispers, tries to rise to her feet but something's holding her in place, body chained to the floor. "What's happening?"

"You have to get out, Kate," the girl says, kneels down to Kate's level and settles her bloody fingers under Kate's chin, tipping her head up; Kate winces as she feels the once dried blood smear against her skin, warm and new. "You have to come to us."

"Who _are_ you?" Kate asks.

"A friend," the girl smiles, fangs shining in the firelight. " _Amigoo_."

"Santanico didn't send you," Kate says, baring her teeth in an attempt to look like she's more than helpless. " _Who_ did?"

"You'll see," the girl says, letting go of Kate's chin so her head falls back towards the floor under the weight of unnatural gravity. "But for now, you must set yourself free."

The girl abruptly grabs Kate's left forearm then, and a searing sensation ripples across Kate's skin. It _burns_ and Kate can't help the scream that escapes, sound filling up the void of the room as everything turns white--

 

 

\--Kate wakes up with a gasp, head swimming as she stares around the dark room.

For a moment she thinks she's still dreaming until she realizes she's upright, her feet dangling towards the floor and her arms locked over her head. She glances down the line of the stone wall at her back, sees Seth next to her, head bowed and eyes shut. Next to him is Amber, and then Talia, Isaac, Thiago, Felipe, Loui, Freddie and Martin. For a moment Kate thinks everyone is dead and panics, but then she sees their chests moving in shallow breath and swallows in relief.

"You're awake."

With a small jolt, Kate looks over to her other side too quick, neck straining as she finds the blue of Richie's eyes in the darkness, the worry in his gaze. He's chained up just like the rest of them, only there's also shackles around his feet and neck and stomach. He looks sallow, drained out, his mouth dripping over with a tacky black goo that's also running out of his nose and ears.

"What happened?" Kate asks, her dream still on the forefront of her mind and details from the time between her and Richie finding Seth to waking up here fuzzy.

"Carlos set us up, remember," Richie says, filling in the blanks. "He had those culebras attack us and there were too many to hold off-- you and Seth got knocked out and when I tried to help I got chained up. They brought us here where your... _friends_ were already hanging up, and tortured me."

"Richie..." Kate whispers, feels terrible for being somewhere in weird-world dream land while he was being hurt. "Are you okay?"

"I'll live," Richie says. "Well...sorta."

Kate can't help the small, frantic laugh that escapes her, slants her eyes away in shame and realizes that they're in a room like the one they found at the bottom of that staircase earlier. It's not the same though, layout a little bit different, red curtains traded in for a shiny gold. There's chairs and lounge couches strewn about behind an open area in front of her, blood staining everything and the smell of rot making Kate's nostrils sting.

"Why aren't we dead?" Kate asks. "Why haven't they tried to...to _turn_ me?"

"I don't know the answer to the latter," Richie says. "But the reason we aren't dead is because Carlos wants Seth and me _alive_."

"But you're the ones that can kill the Nine," Kate says, confusion and exhaustion making her tongue heavy. "Why didn't they kill _you_ as quick as possible?"

"The Nine want us to work for them, apparently," Richie says, sarcastic quirk to his mouth. "They want us to kill Santanico for them, and then kill the Death Lords."

"Death Lords?" Kate asks, because she knows about the gods who originally ruled the Mayan Underworld, about how they're supposedly always fighting with the Nine, but she didn't think she'd ever know anything more about them than that. "So it's true them and the Nine are still feuding with each other?"

"Since the dawn of time," Richie says. "The Nine want them gone, and only the real hunters can do that. Even if the Death Lords gave us the power to kill culebras in the beginning, it also meant giving us the power to kill _gods_ , too, as you know. Originally the Maya twins could only shame the Gods to win, apparently. Now we can cut their heads off or rip their hearts out as simply as doing it to a human."

"And the Nine want you to do that for them to the Death Lords," Kate says. "Because it saves them the trouble of getting their hands dirty."

"Pretty much," Richie sighs. "I think that's why Carlos must want you turned. To try and convince Seth and I to help them."

"But you won't," Kate says, because Richie isn't as soft about the subject as Seth.

Richie shakes his head in confirmation. "Your maker wouldn't control you, Kate. They have influence over you, but not that much. We have a leg up anyways," he says.

"How?" Kate asks, because they're chained to a wall and helpless. "Scott's probably not even here. This was all for shit."

"Maybe not," Richie says, and Kate knows he isn't telling her the whole story.

"Can you be anymore vague?" she frowns, wiggles a little in her bonds and winces as she feels pain strike down her arms and into her shoulders. She thinks about her dream, about the burning sensation on her left forearm-- everything else hurts too much to focus on that and see if it had any merit. "How long have I been out, anyways?" she asks after a moment, when Richie won't answer her first question.

"About an hour," Richie says. "Everyone else, too. I think they chloroformed you."

"Great," Kate says, tries to touch her toes to the ground and fails. "Pretty soon my arms are just going to come out of the socket."

Richie grimaces, opens his mouth to say something in reply when Seth's body jostles next to Kate's. She looks over and sees him blinking his eyes open, familiar amber warmth as he feels her staring and looks back groggily. There's an irritated cut over his right eye, one of the injuries he sustained while trying to keep the culebras that attacked them earlier away from Kate. But there had been too many, and eventually Seth was beaten into submission, Kate quick to follow. The others, too, aparently.

"Hey," Seth says, sleep-slurred speech.

"Hey," Kate says back, throat closing up with worry. "Are you okay?"

"My head hurts like a bitch," Seth answers, slumping against the wall in his restraints-- unlike Kate, his feet touch the floor and he's able to move around more easily. "What happened? Last thing I remember we were going to meet Gonzalez and then--"

Seth stops, blinks rapidly as he peers around Kate at Richie, who's been standing there silently this entire time, fingers twitching above the shackles around his wrists. Seth makes a soft sound in the back of his throat at the sight of his brother, and Kate watches as everything seems to come back to him. With the memories of what's happened in the past two days also comes the nine month old hurt and anger, Seth's body tensing up until the chains holding him to the wall rattle.

"How's it hanging, brother?" Richie asks, trying to be funny but Seth just snarls at him, starts up with a litany of curses and flailing, trying to get loose so he can beat the shit out of Richie again, probably.

Eventually Seth gives up though because it's no use and he's stuck, chest heaving with breath as he plops back against the stone wall behind them and spits sticky saliva out of his mouth onto the floor. His temper tantrum has somehow managed not to wake up the others, all of them still sleeping soundly in their bonds. Kate wishes one of them _would_ wake up though, because now that Seth's settled she's left here between him and his brother and their grief, quite literally.

"For what it's worth," Richie says after Seth goes quiet, entire stance somber. "I was still planning to come find you again, if this whole thing didn't spiral out of control the way it has."

"I told you not to bother," Seth says, and Kate can hear the hitch in his voice, a sound like like he can't get any air into his lungs, the tell-tale sign he's going to start crying.

She's only seen him truly cry twice, and the first time wasn't even intentional.

It was about six weeks after the Twister, and Kate came home early from what was supposed to be a closing shift at the diner because Maria offered to cover for her-- Seth was already off of work and Kate expected to find him sitting on the couch drinking a beer and watching television as always. What she found instead was an empty living room, and Kate figured that maybe Seth had decided to take a nap or something (the man naps like a sloth, so it would make sense if that was the case) and started towards the bedroom to check.

Only, when she got to the bedroom door, she heard a small, labored sound coming from behind it, a hitch in breath like someone couldn't manage to get any air into their lungs. Kate propped the door open with her foot cautiously, stared inside and saw Seth curled onto his side in bed. His back was turned to her, but she could see him shaking, could hear him _sobbing_. And the sounds were just so awful and small, so tucked up inside of him and rippling with agony.

Kate felt her own eyes watering, wanted to comfort him but knew this was a private moment; they'd become friends over the last six weeks, but she and Seth still weren't on the level of asking if the other was okay in instances like this.

So Kate stared on for a minute longer, wishing more than anything that she could help, before eventually turning back around and leaving. She stayed out until when she had expected to get off shift, rented a movie and got some groceries before going back to the apartment.

When she came in this time Seth was sitting in his usual spot on the couch, beer in hand and television on. It looked like he'd never been crying in the first place. "Hey, princess," he said. "What'd you get to eat?"

Kate never brought up the fact she'd seen him breaking down that night, not until three months later when Seth woke up on the second Friday of October in a very foul mood. He was sour to Kate and everyone in general all day, and so Kate went ahead and took some extra hours at the diner just to get away from him being such an asshole and keep herself from necessarily blowing up on him about it.

When she finally came home around eleven that night, it was to see Seth sitting on the floor of the living room with half a bottle of tequila and a _Pingüinos_ cupcake with an unlit candle stuck into it sitting in front of him. Kate just blinked at the sight, closed the door and set her things down on the entry table before cautiously approaching.

"What'cha doin'?" she asked, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor a few feet in front of him, trying to be nice.

"Fuck off," Seth answered.

Kate sighed, crowded into his space some more and snatched the bottle of liquor away from him because she knew it was making him even meaner and she was sick of his pissiness already. Seth shouted at her, tried to reach for the bottle but was too drunk and fell over a little, barely catching himself on the lip of the coffee table. Kate waited patiently for him to calm down.

After five minutes of utter silence, Seth finally looked up at Kate and she could see that she'd been wrong all day in thinking he was angry, because he wasn't. He was _grieving_. She looked down at the cupcake on the floor again, the unlit candle stuck in it, connecting the dots together.

"Is it Richie's birthday?" Kate asked softly, didn't expect a reply, but Seth gave her one anyways with a small nod of his head.

"Mine too," he mumbled. "We were born exactly a year apart."

"Oh," Kate said, setting the bottle in her hands on the coffee table before shuffling closer to Seth until their knees were touching. "So that's why you've been a grouch all day."

"Yeah," Seth laughed humorously. "It's kind of fucked up. Even in prison, Richie always came to visit me on our birthday. This is the first birthday I've had without him since I was basic'ly a goddamn newborn, Katie. It's _really_ fucked up."

"I understand," Kate said, because she did, in a way. Scott's birthday is in August, and that date had already come and gone by that point, and Kate had grieved for her brother on that day like Seth with Richie, sad for the fact Scott will never get any older, never get to grow up.

"Do you?" Seth asked, and he wasn't so much condescending as hopeless. So far he and Kate had not talked about their pain, not in any way that involved emotion. They had talked of their anger, their spite. They'd disguised the hurt with clever words and curses, but deep down Kate knew it was just that-- a cover-up.

"Yes," Kate said. "You're not alone, Seth."

It only took a minute for that to settle in with Seth, for him to realize how much Kate meant with those few words. In the next few seconds his breath was hitching like he couldn't get any air into his lungs, eyes red and wet and nose watering as he started crying, burying his face into his hands.

Kate sat still for as long as she could, giving him time, before finally she couldn't stand it anymore and threw her arms around him. Seth turned into the embrace automatically, sobbing into her shoulder while Kate ran her hands down his back and told him it was okay to cry, that it was okay to be sad.

That was when Seth told her about how his father never let him and Richie cry as kids, about how it's easier to hold it in after learning that way, but Seth just couldn't hold it in anymore. So Kate just held _him_ tighter at the words, saying that his dad was wrong, that her momma said there is never any shame in crying when you hurt on the inside and need to let it out.

"I fucking miss my brother," Seth said in between broken exhales of breath, his fingers digging into Kate's skin but she didn't mind the bruises they were leaving. "He's a fucking _dick_ for what he did, but I fucking miss him, Kate."

"It's okay, Seth," Kate said, pulling away from him a bit so she could catch his eye and show him sincerity. "It's okay to miss him..." She took a deep breath, figured it was now or never to tell him. "I saw you crying a couple of weeks ago. Was it about Richie then, too?"

"Yes," Seth said after a guarded moment, walls breaking down. "I keep telling myself I'm better off without him now that he's a fucking blood-sucker, but, _Christ_ , nothin' gets any better."

Kate just looked at him, smoothed his hair away from his face and smiled sadly. "Do you remember what you said the other week, when we got back from Acapulco?"

"That the beach there sucked?" Seth asked, and Kate laughed, shook her head.

"You said it's okay to do what we do because we're hurting," she answered. "You said we can do it until the hurting stops-- that means the hurting _will_ stop, Seth."

Seth snorted, wiped a hand over his snotty, tear-stained face and shook his head. "Sally fucking Sunshine," he told Kate before leaning in and hugging her-- it was short and quick, but it meant everything. "I hate it when you're right."

"You love me and you know it, Gecko," Kate grinned, felt her heart stutter when Seth laughed happily in response.

"Yeah, but you're a fucking pain in the ass," he said, reached over to the side and grabbed the cupcake there off the ground. "Richie and I always used to get a pack of Hostess to celebrate, but the convenience store didn't have those so I got this shit instead. Wanna share?"

"Sure," Kate grinned, watched as Seth took a lighter out of his pocket and set the candle stuck in the cupcake aflame. "Make a wish."

Seth shook his head. "The only thing I could wish for is feeling less like shit all the time. But I don't need to."

"Why's that?" Kate asked.

"Because I've got you," Seth said, and blew the candle out.

Kate thinks about that memory all the time, but now especially. She tries in vain to struggle loose of her bonds again, sways her body towards Seth's as he looks up and she sees the tears making their way down his cheeks, the way his eyes are already starting to swell up. She wonders what it finally was that did this to him-- why he didn't start crying when he saw Richie earlier, but waited until now.

Then she thinks about the brothers' exchange of words, that Seth never told her Richie said he would come find him again. She realizes that the reason it's been so hard for Seth to try and even remotely move on since Richie left is because Richie gave him the hope that he'd come back some day. And even though Seth's brother is a monster, he's still his _brother_. And Kate knows how much that stings because she feels the same way about Scott-- she left him back at the Twister because she was angry and afraid, and that was the same reason Seth told Richie not to bother to find him again. But they're still their brothers, still  _blood_.

"Seth..." Kate tries, toes reaching helplessly towards the floor; for a moment she's forgotten the place they're in, the danger. She's forgotten there's anyone in this room but her and Seth, and that Seth is hurt and she wants to fix him.

"You didn't mean it," Richie says then, and it just makes everything worse.

"Didn't _mean it_?" Seth asks, trembling mouth twisting up in anger. "You ditched out on me for some _fang-bitch_ just because she gets your dick hard and gave you twenty-twenty vision, and you think I didn't _mean it_ when I said I'm done with you?"

"So that's why you took Kate as a replacement?" Richie fires back, anger simmering up and Kate flinches at the comment.

"She's not a fucking replacement!" Seth shouts, straining forwards in his chains. "She wouldn't fucking bail out on me for some motherfucking _vampire_!"

Richie's expression goes from livid to cold, and Kate tenses up, knows he's going to say something stupid and cruel. "So that's why she let me bite her?" Richie asks.

Seth stops struggling, skin going pale as a new round of tears leak in fat drops down his face. "...What?"

Kate's too shocked that Richie just told Seth what happened _now_ , _here_ , of all places, that she can't even try and ask him to shut up, just hangs there mutely as Richie smirks and gloats, "Yeah, she let me feed from her. And then I gave her my blood, which makes her _mine_."

There's silence in the room for a few long moments before Kate hears Seth shift and ask, "Kate...?"

She keeps her eyes on the floor, shame and regret burning through her. "He had to feed and I didn't want to see him kill someone to do it," Kate whispers, though it sounds like a poor excuse even to herself.

At the time, when she did let Richie drink from her, it really was because she didn't want to watch him kill someone. At least that's what she thought it was. But she remembers the way she felt when he teased her back in the hotel room, when he actually did bite her and had his hands everywhere. She remembers that she almost kissed him less than two hours ago, that she still can't deny the connection between them no matter how much she wishes she could.

"Why did you drink his blood?" Seth asks, tone numb.

"I tried to push him off in the middle--" Kate starts, but Richie interrupts her with a boastful tone.

"She was gonna come," Richie says, and Kate hates him for the way she can see the enjoyment in his expression over the fact he's rubbing this into Seth's wounds like salt, taking secrets and spitting them out like insults. "I was going to make her come, and she pushed me off because she's a good, _innocent_  girl-- right, Kate?"

Kate glares at him in answer, embarrassment and anger swelling up in her. This entire time she's tried to make herself remember that Richie's a monster, but he's just been so...sweet, so _human_. She thought that maybe she was wrong about everything, that maybe he could change and be good. But now she can see it was all just a front, that it _had_  to have been a front because there's no way Richie can be a caring person one minute and a heartless monster the next.

"Anyways," Richie says, some of the black stuff from his mouth dripping onto the front of his bloody t-shirt, "when she pushed me off I ripped some skin so she fed from me to heal, and now she's got my blood in her. It means she's mine."

"I'm not _anyone's_!" Kate shouts then, all of the animosity in her bursting. Words start tumbling out and she doesn't bother to sensor, vocal chords on autopilot. "I told you not to touch me when you bit me, but you did! You said you were sorry and I thought you meant it, but apparently I was wrong! And you cried on me on p _ur_ po _s_ e, remember?! You marked me before then too, and after when I didn't even know what it meant! I just wanted to _live_! I came with you to get my brother and now look what happened, Richie-- _look_!" Kate rattles in her chains, panic rising up in her chest and her body going into over-drive.

"We're all dead because of me, because I had the hope of getting my brother back like you had the hope of getting Seth back!" she screams, doesn't even care when she hears the others begin to rouse with frightened awareness. Talia wakes up first and asks what's going on, followed by one hunter after the next but Kate's too busy yelling to explain, too busy bleeding out all of her pain and anger the way Richie first saw her. "And now-- _now_ ," she says. "Now I'm never going to get Scott back, not really. They're going to turn me into a monster like _you_! And you're just going to drive Seth away even more because you're  _ **fucking** jealous_ that he and I are together and he's not with _you_!"

Kate kicks her feet, heels landing back hard into the wall behind her and it hurts but she's not finished yet and she doesn't care. "This isn't about me!" she snarls, watches the way Richie cringes from her tone which just spurs her forwards. "Don't act like it is! It _isn't_. This is about you and Seth, and about you not having the goddamn _balls_ to say you're sorry! Instead you just fuck with his head because it's all you know how to do. I can't believe I ever felt sorry for you, that I thought you could change. You're the same scared, little boy you've always been, and you're just hiding behind this stupid save-the-world plot so you don't have to own up to your sins, but it's not going to work and we're all going to _die_ here anyways!"

Again, Kate kicks against the wall, lets out a sob and shakes her head. "This is all my fault for trusting you. I never should've gone with Seth. I should've left it all alone and everyone would be safe-- I'm sorry." She looks up at her teammates then, at all their shocked faces that hold both pity and terror for her. "I'm sorry," she says again. "This is all my fault. I wanted to be a hero and I just fucked you all over instead."

Kate drops her head again, looks at the floor and thinks she's going to go insane with regret and rage when the clapping starts.

Everyone looks up in tandem to see Carlos emerging from a door at the side of the room, hands smacking together in a steady cadence. "Bravo, bravo," he says as six culebras follow in behind him-- they're dragging another culebra along, though he's putting up a good fight. "Quite the speech there, Kate," Carlos continues, stepping up in front of her and making Kate cringe in the realization that he must have been listening to her hysterics this whole time. "Nice to see someone put Richard in his place."

Kate swallows, gaze caught up on the man that turned her brother, the man that took Scott away from her. For a split second she wants to forget her own guilt and blame this all on him, say that if he hadn't of bitten Scott then Kate and their dad would've found him just fine and they would've all gone home. Dad wouldn't be dead, Scott wouldn't be a monster, and Seth would be somewhere else, safe and sound because Kate _knows_ he wouldn't have stayed in Mexico if it wasn't for her, that they wouldn't have met up with their team and gotten them all into this mess, too.

"But as touching as that speech was," Carlos says, turning on his heel and striding back to his men confidently. "We don't have all night, do we? It seems we should get on with the show, then, right?"

"And what _is_ the show exactly?" Seth asks then; Kate looks over at him for the first time since she started yelling, sees him holding his head high with no fear despite the fact his eyes are swollen from crying, gaze unwavering on Carlos.

"Why, you're going to work for me again, Seth," Carlos grins. "You and your whack job brother over there are going to be under rule of the Nine, and you're going to kill Santanico Pandemonium as well as _anyone_ else we want you to."

"While killing that bitch sounds nice," Seth smirks. "I'll pass."

"Ah, but see, I don't think you will," Carlos says, grabbing hold of the struggling culebra his men have been holding down and pulling him forwards. "If you and Richard don't give me the answer I want, I'm just going to cut your friends apart like so:"

Carlos demonstrates his point by ushering one of his men up to his side and pulling a very long, very old looking sword out of a sheath the other culebra holds up. Kate watches with wide eyes as he leans down to the struggling culebra's level, holding the monster's face to the light.

"You have betrayed your kind, Marco. Working with hunters to make an extra penny, how despicable," Carlos says.

Kate blinks at the information, looks over at her teammates and sees Thiago intently focusing on the culebra named Marco, the way he's stopped struggling and kneels there on the floor where Carlos threw him with calmness, almost like Marco's accepted what's about to come next. Kate realizes he's one of theirs then, that even if he is also the enemy in a technical sense, he means something to her because of how much Thiago seems to care about what's going to happen to Marco next.

"Have any last words?" Carlos asks then, and until this point Marco's had a gag in his mouth, but Carlos takes it out now, giving Marco the ability to speak.

Instead of using words right off the bat though, Marco spits on Carlos' expensive suit jacket, the same black goo that's coming out of Richie's mouth, too, replacing what should be saliva. "I didn't do it for the money," Marco says. "I did it because it's the right thing-- because freaks like you need to be _stopped_."

"Takes one to know one," Carlos says, heaves back his sword and cuts Marco's head off as if it's as simple as cutting through mist.

Kate closes her eyes from the sight, bites her tongue when she hears Thiago shout, calling Carlos a bastard and damning him to Hell in Spanish before one of Carlos' men come over and punch Thiago in the stomach, quieting him from the pain. Kate wonders how well Thiago knew Marco, if they were friends. She imagines Marco came here to help him, and for that he's _dead_. Which means his blood is on her hands, and she  _hates_ it. She hates all of this and wishes she could take it back, that she could be the only thing Carlos wants because she'd gladly give herself over if it means saving the others.

But she's just a pawn, while Seth and Richie are the Kings. Kate is a weapon to use against them, a non-significant threat of damnation on her head. She means nothing in the grand scheme of things. All this plotting and planning and confusion has made her think she plays a bigger part than she actually does, despite what that culebra from her dream said. Because, when it boils down to it, Kate's really not the deciding factor that will make Seth and Richie do what Carlos wants them to.

As long as the brothers have each other, they don't need her.

When Kate finally opens her eyes again she sees that another one of Carlos' men must have staked Marco too, because where the body was there's nothing but ashes left, fresh blood spatter on the couches.

"So, will you join us, Geckos, or do we need to pick another victim?" Carlos asks then, brings the blade of his sword up near his mouth and licks the blood off of it.

"You have a problem with this plan, Carlos," Richie says then, smug smirk in place. "These guys aren't _my_ friends. Maybe it'd crack Seth to kill them, but not me. I don't care if they live or die."

"Thanks, fang-dick," Felipe mutters from down the line, but Richie pays him no heed, just keeps looking on with an air of nonchalance.

"Yes, well, there is one person you care about here besides your brother, Richard," Carlos says. " _Kate_."

"Leave her out of it!" Seth shouts, and Kate's surprised he'd still stick up for after finding out everything she's done to betray him. But then she looks over and sees the fire in his eyes, the fierce protectiveness there and she realizes that even if he hates her, he'd still never let her get hurt.

"But I can't," Carlos says, giving a frivolous shrug because he sees the same, exact thing. "She's you and Richie's biggest weakness, next to each other. The poor little girl you made an orphan out of like yourselves. The beautiful preacher's daughter you bad men can't keep your hands off of. Is it because she's full of light, or because you both want to fuck her?"

"Shut  _up_!" Seth snarls, but Richie doesn't answer.

"Tell me, Seth," Carlos continues dismissively. "What would you do if I were to turn your precious Kate into one of us? The Nine need a replacement for Santanico, and with all that light inside of her, she's _perfect_."

"You fucking  _bastard_!" Talia screams in place of Seth, her eyes growing wide as she realizes what he's saying.

"Carlos, you  _can't_ ," Freddie inputs, teeth clenched.

"But I can, Freddie. I can do whatever I please because _I_ have the power here," Carlos smirks, giving Freddie a long, intimate gaze that makes even Kate shiver from the intensity of it. "The Lords have chosen me to be their patron, right along with Narcisso. I have moved up the ladder, and I will do whatever is necessary to keep it that way."

"So you're using Kate as a fucking bargaining chip," Loui spits, shaking his head in disgust.

"You are a Godless man," Martin follows up.

"I am not Godless," Carlos snorts. "I am simply _smart_. I do what needs to be done, unlike you pathetic  _hunters_ who kill my kind just because you're upset we pick you off like the dying breed you are." Carlos inspects his nails like he's bored with this whole conversation, like he's heard it a million times. "Except for those select few we bless with eternity," he says after a moment. "You should all be thanking me, really, for having the brothers work for the Lords and keeping my kind flourishing. And for giving this gift to Kate to ensure the Geckos do what needs done."

"There's another problem for you, Carlos," Richie says then, smirk back in place and getting bigger and bigger. Kate realizes that that something he wasn't telling her earlier-- that ' _leg up_ '-- has been right here in front of her this whole time but she's missed it until now. "In order to turn Kate yourself, in order to have _any kind_ of leverage over her and us, you'd have to drain her and give her _your_ blood. But, see, she already has _my_ blood in her system. So, technically, I'd be the one who made her."

Kate blinks, body twitching and cheeks flaming as the team all look at her with equal shock and a bit of revulsion. Even Carlos is just staring at her, yellow eyes wide until they slowly start slitting in anger. He twists his neck a few times like a _snake_ , adjusts his collar and licks his teeth before looking away, huffing out a breath.

"I'm not wrong, am I?" Richie chuckles. "So, really, any way you do this, you're fucked, man."

Everyone holds their breath for Carlos' response.

"Oh no, I guess you have me beat, Richard," Carlos says after a moment, turns around and laughs with a little shrug. "Then again, you know, I could just _kill_ Kate if you don't say yes."

All of the confidence in Richie's face melts away to coldness. "You wouldn't do that," Richie says. "You _need_ her. You just said so yourself."

"Do I?" Carlos asks, smiling like a freaking _Bond_ villain. "There are plenty people pure of heart in the world, Richard. So maybe it takes us a couple hundred years to find Santanico's replacement for the Nine-- they don't really care, as long as we've got the Maya Twins. Kate was just a good option because she'd put Seth on our side for sure, and probably you too. But now? Now she's expendable like every other hunter in this place."

Kate doesn't realize how bad she's trembling until she hears Seth take a breath next to her, looks over and finds him staring at her with wide eyes. Did he even know that Kate being used as a sacrifice was one of the possibilities, Kate wonders. Did he think there was a possibility Carlos would just kill her, instead?

 _I didn't even really think about it,_ Kate realizes, heart hammering in her chest. _I was so concerned with not having eternity I didn't even realize I might not have tomorrow either._

"So kill me, then," Kate says before she thinks any better about it, squeezes her eyes shut when she sees Seth's face fall, breath rushing out of his lungs as he mouths, " _No_." at her. It makes her feel like there's hope for forgiveness from him over what she's done and it breaks her heart, but she's not going to back down. She's not going to be used like a playing card, not anymore. 

Because if Carlos really does kill her, there's no way either Seth or Richie will work for him. Kate would rather it all end right here, right now than be something weighed over their heads, the perpetual toy mouse on a string.

"Ah, ah, Katie-Cakes," Carlos says, the nickname making Kate seethe with rage because how dare _he_ , of all people, call her that. "We'll leave this one up to the brothers, for now." For a moment he lets the threat hang there before steepling his hands together and putting on an air of inconvenience. "But until then, my men are so very hungry from trying to wrestle your _fine_  hunting team down here from the club. How about we give them a snack, huh?"

The wall of hunters goes up in violent shouts and struggling chains as two culebras from Carlos' accompaniment stride towards them then, grabbing Martin from where he's chained up and dragging him down despite the man's protests.

"Get off me, you undead fucks!" Martin screams, flailing and kicking but he's still weak from being chained up from so long, muscles refusing to work.

"Let go of him!" Talia screams at the same time as Thiago, who's recovered from his beating enough to get the words out.

"Stop it!" Kate cries, body seizing in horror as she watches all six culebras that came in with Carlos hold Martin down, one bearing his neck.

There's a moment of pause and everything seems to go in slow motion as they all watch the culebra bite into Martin's neck, before the others follow and begin ripping him apart with their teeth. Martin screams and tries to get away but can't, blood spurting everywhere and chunks of his flesh being spit onto the ground.

"Martin! _Martin_!" Talia calls, her voice sounding like breaking class.

" _Bájese de él, folla_!" Felipe shouts at the same time as Freddie tells Carlos to stop this, that it's ridiculous and mad and _inhumane_.

The world speeds up again and Kate watches as Martin reaches out, his eyes wide and filled with terror and anguish but there's too much blood bubbling up in his throat for him to scream anymore. Yet he's not dying, not quick enough to get the pain over with. The culebras are just ripping him up, lapping at the blood but not making it so there's enough for him to bleed out without realizing what's happening, without feeling every, single, little thing.

"Please," Kate whispers, lower lip trembling as she realizes his death will be because of her, too. "Please, God, make it stop."

Carlos is before her in an instant, grabs her under the chin and turns her face towards his sharply, ripping her gaze away from Martin's flailing body and the laughing, blood covered culebras eating him. Kate holds Carlos' gaze, sees nothing but maliciousness in his dark eyes, smugness over the fact this is effecting them all so much. It's obvious he likes seeing people crack, likes showing they're weak and he's strong. And that makes Kate wonder if he was ever human to begin with.

"Don't fucking touch her!" Richie growls at the same time Seth surges forwards and tries to kick at Carlos, barking for him to get away from Kate.

Carlos ignores them both, strokes a fingertip down Kate's cheek and she resists the urge to vomit. "Now, now, _mi linda sol_ ," he says to her. "You and I both know that there is no God, not the one you are calling for. _I_ am your God for mercy, here. Convince the brothers to join me, and this will all be over."

"I can't make them do anything," Kate says, toes curling in her boots as she hears bones beginning to snap-- the others stop screaming, their mouths and eyes open wide as the culebras begin tearing Martin limb from limb, throwing bloody hunks of him at his friends' feet.

"Can't you?" Carlos smirks right before he moves away from her, snaps his fingers and has his men follow him to the door, leaving Martin's mangled body on the floor, gore strewn everywhere. Kate can't even recognize the man who was once a part of her team there in the carnage-- all she sees is shining bone and ground flesh. "You have one hour to decide, Geckos. Otherwise we come for another, and we'll keep going like that right up until we get to your precious Katie-Cakes."

He shuts the door then, the room going stagnant as all the hunters left on the wall simply hang there, staring at something that was once their friend on the floor before them.

Kate closes her eyes, flexing her hands into fists, forearm stinging.

 

 

 

 


End file.
